Cycling Celebrity

Member of the upper house has ridden through the cold of Edmonton and the mountains of Italy

Senator Grant Mitchell

Sen. Grant Mitchell’s 30-year passion for cycling started by chance. Cycling has since taken him all over the world, from Hawaii’s infamous Ironman to the Dolomites in Italy and throughout Canada. But, for the Alberta senator, it could just as easily not have happened at all.

In the fall of 1988, Mitchell was a member of the legislative assembly in Edmonton and had been appointed as the environment critic. While on his way to work, Mitchell encountered well-known environmentalist, and later Edmonton city councillor, Tooker Gomberg. Mitchell, surprised to see Gomberg riding his bike through the snow, asked him how he kept riding through winter. Gomberg’s matter-of-fact response: “Oh, I just ride. You ski and you don’t get cold, do you? So, I just ride my bike.”

“That got me,” Mitchell recalls. “I realized, I’m the environment critic. I should be riding to work.”

Starting that spring, Mitchell rode to the Alberta Legislature. “I left suits at the office and changed at work. I’d get a good 35 to 40 minutes in going to work and another 35 coming back,” he says. He kept this routine up into the winter months, riding his mountain bike through the city’s river valley on all but the coldest days. “I’d ride in 15 C below, but that was my limit, 15 below.”

The role of environment critic may have sparked Mitchell’s interest in cycling, but it was a strong competitive drive that pushed his cycling to the next level. He began training for triathlons, completing his first race in 1989. Later, Mitchell travelled to Penticton to compete in the Ironman Canada event. His time was fast enough to qualify for Ironman Hawaii.

“Those are life experiences, really defining experiences for me,” Mitchell says of completing his two Ironmans. “They made me feel like I could do more than I thought I could do. They’re an outstanding challenge in every way, physical and mental.” Through the late 1980s and 1990s, the Albertan estimates he finished 50 triathlons of varying distances.

Shortly after joining the Senate in 2005, Mitchell faced knee problems that ended his running and triathlon career. “The last long run I ever did, I remember really clearly. I was in Afghanistan with the Senate Defence Committee. We were staying at the Kandahar Airbase, which is huge. It had a 12-km track around the airbase.”

Cycling became Mitchell’s outlet for his athletic drive, which led to meeting Alex Stieda, the first North American to wear the leader’s jersey at the Tour de France. Mitchell participated in two of Stieda’s European guided tours. In 2007, they rode in the Dolomites and made a visit to the Wilier Triestina factory, Mitchell’s favourite bike brand, in Rossano Veneto.

Mitchell’s all-time favourite bike, however, is something more local. When he became a more competitive rider, he dropped into Edmonton’s High Country Sports to see frame builder Bob Townsend. Mitchell borrowed a custom steel race bike that another customer had walked away from. It quickly turned into a purchase for the future senator. ”I got on that bike, and I couldn’t believe it,” he says. “It was so quick and so responsive. To this day, I remember the sensation.”

“I’d ride in 15 C below, but that was my limit, 15 below.”

Mitchell rode that steel ProctorTownsend at races for 10 years. “It was a classic. It was Albertan. It was Canadian. And it was made by two guys, Proctor and Townsend from Edmonton, out of their shop. I just loved that bike.”

Throughout the years, Mitchell’s cycling has fluctuated with his work schedule. A four-year run as leader of the Alberta Liberal Party in the mid-90s led to a hiatus in triathlon. Then a position as government liaison in the Senate from May 2016 to January 2020 led to another extended break from life on two wheels.

Mitchell still sits in the Senate, but with the government liaison position behind him, he is happy to have more time back on the bike. He’s training once again with the goal of completing the 126-km Prospera Granfondo Axel Merckx Okanagan in Penticton this July.

“Cycling’s been a wonderful, rewarding, fulfilling part of my life,” he says. “I feel really lucky to have it, and I hope to be able to do it for a long time.”