ride to resilience
City of North Vancouver Firefighter and professional mountain biker Steve Vanerhoek stars in this full length feature film by Geoff Livingstone.
What initially started as a film showcasing Steve’s amazing mounting biking skills transformed into documentry about the struggles faced by Steve and other first responders as they navigate trauma and the weight inflicted on them by the job.
In 2017 I was fortunate to be able to participate in an international Firefighter exchange for 12 months with the District of North Vancouver Fire Department.
Set up differently than Australian Fire Services, the City and District were 2 completely separate neighboring departments and while I didn’t ever cross paths with Steve I did respond to many incidents with his department over that 12 month period and worked with many faces within this film.
If your a fan of mountain biking or just adventure sports in general I think you’ll enjoy the action side to the film but it goes a lot deeper. I found it quite heavy in parts and almost hard to watch. It took me a few bites to watch it in full but it was well worth it.
the 2 main messages I took from this film.
Check-in on your mates! simple as that. look for those signs that perhaps they’re not as OK as they say.
Find something that you love to do. What ever that is but studies have shown, participating in healthy, social and vigorous activities can be one of the most effective strategies for achieving good mental health. Hoping to write more about that in future post’s
In the meantime I highly reccomend checking out the full film below. Its a full 2hrs but well worth the watch
Scott