More Important than 13 Rainbow Jerseys
The extraordinary drive of paracyclist Tristen Chernove
He has won world championships and Paralympic medals. He’s still after wins, but also a big shift within cycling
On a mountain pass between Kimberley and Crawford Bay, in British Columbia, Tristen Chernove thought he’d blown it. It was during the first day of his attempt to ride the BC Epic 1000, a multi-day bikepacking route from Fernie, B.C., west through the Kootenay Mountains to the city of Merritt in the Nicola Valley. It was July 19, 2020. He was 10 hours into the ride, out of water and deep into the red, thinking his goal of finishing was at risk – to say nothing of his ambition to set a new record.
“I wanted to get to Kootenay Bay in time for the last ferry of the day, which was at around 9 p.m.,” Chernove said. “I knew most of the route, but I had never ridden that pass before and didn’t know what to expect.”
The whole event featured a lot of unknowns for Chernove. He had never bike-packed prior to the trip and wasn’t sure how his gear would hold up. Chernove races on the track and road for the Canadian paracycling team. His medal haul is exceptional – bronze, silver, and gold from the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, gold medal sweeps in each of his races at the 2017 paracycling track world championships and the paracycling world road championships that year, with even more at the 2018 worlds. (He has 13 rainbow jerseys in his closet, but has lost track of the wins they correspond with.) Despite all of these successes, Chernove wasn’t sure how his body would respond to the demands of a 1,000-km multi-day time trial on gravel while carrying all his needed gear.
While Chernove has had unprecedented success on the track and road, his bigger goal is to change representation in cycling and to show that anyone can ride. He’s active in his community to show kids what is possible and to inspire them to see themselves as cyclists no matter their circumstances. Chernove is also vice-president of the Cycling Canada athlete’s council, which has allowed him to push for greater diversity at the elite level of the sport.
Chernove was diagnosed in 2009 with Charcot-marie-Tooth disease. cmt is a hereditary condition that affects the ability of the nervous system to transmit signals through the body. The peripheral nervous system – the network outside of the brain and spinal cord – is where the disease is at work. At the centre of a nerve is the axon, which passes signals from the brain to muscles, organs and pretty much everything in the body. cmt Type 2 causes degeneration of the axons, interfering with the signals being sent from the brain. (cmt Type 1 affects the myelin, or insulation, around axons.)
“I tell people to imagine that the axons are highways and the vehicles travelling on them are the signals from the brain,” said Chernove. “Now imagine that highway surface degrading, with more and more potholes in the road surface making the ride rougher. That’s what cmt does.”
cmt is the most common hereditary neuropathy in the world. It has four distinct types and more than 25 subtypes. Only one has a treatment in human trials, so treatments for most cases are still a long way off. “It’s not life-threatening like als, but it was absolutely a threat to the kind of life I knew,” Chernove said.
He grew up in a family of five siblings, on a co-operative farm outside of Powell River, B.C. “He was one of the brood of kids that would run around barefoot, help in the garden and ride to the next farm over to meet his friends,” said his mother, Malerie Meeker. “But he also got to go to school in town and be part of that community as well. It was the best of both worlds.”
Meeker spent her whole life working in the disability field, for a stretch as a preschool teacher in an integrated environment where able-bodied and differently abled kids were all together. She also welcomed a young girl with disabilities into the family home for a while. Tristen and his siblings quickly learned about the extra support and care that some people need. That early experience set the tone for Chernove, who is known for his respect and compassion while also being a driven high-performance athlete.
On that mountain pass in the Kootenays, Chernove was alone and worn out. Yet there was only one way forward. He dug deep and kept riding. The evening ferry was still the goal. Then, it became apparent that catching the boat wasn’t going to be a problem. Chernove had set such a pace that he rolled into Kootenay Bay just after 6 p.m., getting on the ferry hours ahead of the last sailing of the day.
“All that time was lost though,” said Chernove, laughing. “On the other side, I just had to drink and get salt and rest.” The mental resilience that Chernove demonstrated that day is simply common for him. He’s had a few life experiences that have taught him how to overcome challenges. He also says he doesn’t know how to dabble and only ever goes into something in the most extreme way.
In 2001, Chernove was in the midst of a move from Quebec where he’d been working, instructing and guiding at a whitewater paddling company on the Ottawa River.
He was on route to B.C., driving a bus full of all of his possessions. He was with Carrie Mccrae, who later took his last name when they married. In what might be best described as a meandering path to B.C., Chernove and Mccrae headed south for Mexico to do some river paddling before making their way back north to Canada.
“We had met in 2000,” recalled Carrie. “I had j ust graduated from high school and took a whitewater leadership course.”
Tristen was one of the instructors and was sensitive to Carrie’s nervousness around moving water, helping her learn that she could accomplish whatever she wanted. She learned and grew more confident, and the pair started a relationship. “He’s so incredibly passionate, humble and caring. He always strives to do his best,” said Carrie.
The pair had just crossed into Mexico, when the bus went off the road. Tristen went through the windshield. He was taken to the hospital where it was discovered he’d broken his back. He had been in prime physical shape and was now a long way from home, surrounded in uncertainty. To make matters worse, everything he owned had been stolen from the bus after the crash, including all of his identification. The Canadian consulate helped secure new travel documents. Tristen and Carrie were able to travel back home where he could get better care.
Following his rehab, Chernove poured himself into elite paddling, moving from whitewater to sprint. The damage to his back meant he didn’t have the same ability to rotate his torso, critical in whitewater, and part of any paddling discipline. Working as a firefighter, Chernove also dedicated himself to Firefit competitions, winning a national title. As time pressed on, Chernove started having issues with his feet. They would drop away. He would sometimes trip. And in 2009, he found out he had cmt.
The diagnosis was devastating. Tristen and Carrie had become parents just a couple of years prior. They were advised to sell their home and buy a place without stairs. Carrie was told to prepare herself for caring for a nonambulatory husband. Tristen was told that high physical exertion would accelerate the degradation of his axons. “For the first time, I experienced what depression really was,” said Chernove. “I was being seen as my condition, and not as a person.”
In the year following the diagnosis, Chernove’s cmt worsened. He went to see a new neurologist and his perspective changed. “He told me that we didn’t know what the future would hold,” Chernove said. “I was given room to dream. So much weight had been crushing me, and it was suddenly lifted. He heard me when I talked about my athletic life and ambitions.”
To date, the prevailing theory is that those diagnosed with cmt are best not to tax their bodies, Chernove has bucked that trend. He pursued para-sport. To qualify as a para-athlete requires classification into one of the many categories aimed to help foster more equitable competition. While classification opens the door to new
opportunities, it can be a marker, a point at which the athlete leaves the able-bodied identity behind.
Kate O’brien was a top brakeman in bobsleigh after getting into the sport in 2010. Though injury cost her a spot on the 2014 Olympic roster, she regrouped and decided to try piloting the bobsleigh. At the same time, she earned a spot on the women’s track cycling team, specializing in sprints. She won a gold medal at the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games in the team sprint, and a silver medal
“I WAS GIVEN ROOM TO DREAM. SO MUCH WEIGHT HAD BEEN CRUSHING ME, AND IT WAS SUDDENLY LIFTED.”
in the individual. She made her Olympic debut in Rio 2016 competing in all three sprint events.
Then in 2017, O’brien had a bad crash at the track. At the time it didn’t occur to her that things would change. Her plan was to recover and get back to her teammates. There was, however, enough damage that O’brien moved toward the para squad. “Initially, I thought of it as a jumping off point to getting back to the able-bodied team,” O’brien said. “At the time, I thought para was lesser. Now I know that’s not true. Some of my para teammates are faster than able-bodied team members.”
The transition was difficult. O’brien’s initial impressions set her up for a challenging classification process. She was determined to get back to her pre-injury life, and was closed off to other possibilities.
“Tristen came up to me and started talking with me about classification,” O’brien recalled. “He said, ‘ When you get classified – maybe then, maybe later – you’ll go through emotions about being para.’ Initially, I thought I was fine, and then after a couple of months I was very sad and lost. Even now I am still getting through the feelings.”
During the pandemic, when conditions permitted, the team would train at the track in Burnaby. Chernove and O’brien would get coffee and talk about the transition from able-bodied to para-sport. “He went from able-bodied sports into para, and he totally got what that was like,” O’brien said. “I wasn’t the kind of secondary human that I had thought para would make me. We’re all human, and things do change in life. We’re human, we’re athletes.
“We’ve become friends. The para team is the best team I’ve ever been a part of.”
When Tokyo 2020 was postponed because of covid-19, it changed Chernove’s four-year plan following Rio. Highperformance athletes are rarely able to live a life that is balanced. Those in popular sports may be fortunate enough to make a living from their athletic endeavours, but for others who compete in niche sports, and for paraathletes, that simply isn’t a reality. The change in schedule meant Chernove had to sit down with Carrie and their two daughters to discuss the effects of the postponement.
“Almost all of my waking hours outside of work go to training,” Chernove said. “We’ve had to talk as a family about the sacrifices all of us have to make for Tokyo to happen. A big drive for me is to have family with me. My daughters were too young for Rio, and there were concerns about Zika virus, so I went alone.”
In June, covid loomed over the Games. Because of the pandemic, foreign spectators were barred from the events. Once again, Chernove would not be able to have his family with him. At the same time, covid had helped give the family more time together. With international competition curtailed and training camps reduced, Chernove had been home more than usual.
“He is home more, and more a part of our lives,” said Carrie. “We like having him around. To do what he does and to get to the level he is at, he must spend so much of his time and so much focus on training. It’s just the way it is and I am looking forward to seeing it all slow down.” Tristen now openly discusses how his days of competition are limited.
While Chernove’s drive to compete and push himself is almost superhuman, his biggest passion is to see a broader spectrum of people represented in all aspects of cycling. The main goal of his record-setting BC Epic 1000 ride (which he set with a time of three days, seven hours and five minutes) and the virtual Everesting ride he did this past December with fellow paracyclist Ross Wilson was to raise funds and awareness for the Paralympic Foundation of Canada. He wants that work to go toward creating more programs and opportunities for those with disabilities to access sport. In his city of Cranbrook, B.C., he’s part of a cycling working group that has helped to build and expand adaptive trails in the area. “The Kootenay Adaptive Sports Association has some trail riding equipment here already and we’re working on bringing more,” he said.
Chernove is realizing that his personal results only mean so much. “The impacts I can have are more important than the achievements I can have. Cycling has a pretty narrow band of representation right now,” Chernove said. “It’s no one’s fault, just the history of the sport. But we can be doing more to encourage more diversity in gender, race and ability. Cycling exists in every culture in the world. Why can’t we make that happen in high-performance?”
If anyone has the will to make that happen, it’s Tristen Chernove
“HE SAYS HE DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO DABBLE AND ONLY EVER GOES INTO SOMETHING IN THE MOST EXTREME WAY.”