New to the LapDogs? Looking join your first Club Ride or looking to take your riding to the next level?

To help you feel more comfortable with the LapDogs and our club, we are offering two Mentoring offerings for our members this coming season.

• LDCC “First Ride” Chaperones

• LDCC Mentoring

LDCC “First Ride” Chaperones

Do you feel intimidated joining a club ride with us?  In an effort to welcome more women and gender-diverse riders, we are offering a First Ride Chaperone Program to make you feel more comfortable on your first LDCC club ride.  This offering is available in all disciplines (road, gravel and mountain biking).  If you’d like a chaperone, please click the button below and fill out the form below to indicate your interest and we’ll do our best to match you to a woman or gender-diverse member who will join you and hopefully make you feel more comfortable on your first ride with us.

LDCC Mentoring

Are you new to club riding? Are you looking to do your first 50km or 100km ride?  Maybe you’d like to try your first mountain bike or gravel race or perhaps you’d like to up your game to a Stage Race?  Do you want to increase your riding fitness or endurance? Or perhaps you’d like to try bikepacking but don’t know where to start?

As part of the LapDog’s commitment to fostering a more inclusive environment, we are excited to pilot a new Mentor Program to help members achieve their cycling goals.  LapDog mentors are individuals who embody our supportive and inclusive culture, and who are passionate about helping others grow as cyclists and reach their personal cycling goals.  While mentors are not coaches or trainers, they play a key role in guiding their mentees through encouragement, advice, and companionship.

What can you expect from your mentor?   

You will have regular check-ins (via email, phone, or in person, based on your mutual preference) approximately every two weeks. And if possible, the mentor will join you on one or two rides during the 2025 season. On these rides, mentors will prioritize the needs of their mentee, offering support and creating a positive, goal-oriented experience.  Some mentors are also available as chaperones on your first race (where possible).

If you are interested in being partnered with a First Ride Chaperone or LDCC Mentoring, please click the button below:

Meet our LDCC Mentors

With many decades of combined experience, across a wide range of cycling disciplines, our LDCC Mentors are uniquely qualified to share their passion for bicycles, and help you achieve your cycling goals.

Adlen Bourafa

Adlen has been riding for over 30 years. His passion started while watching Miguel Indurain win his first Tour de France in 1991 while living in Paris. He bought a Marinoni bike and started criterium racing in Montreal as a junior.

Over the years he's ridden thousands of kilometers in multiple countries. Belgium and Northern France are some of his favorite roads (Think Spring Classics)

An ambassador of our sport, experienced ride leader and great conversationist, in both official languages. He now lives in Dundas, ON and is always ready for adventure.

 Adlen’s Mentoring areas:

• Road Rriding and Rider Skills Development

• Gravel Riding and Rider Skills development

Andy (Andrea) McKean

Andy has been an avid cyclist for over 40 years, starting her racing journey at the age of 14 with her first road race. She raced across road, track, and cyclocross disciplines until the early '90s before transitioning to mountain biking. Since then, Andy has participated in countless mountain bike, FatBike, and gravel races, including more than 25 grueling 24-hour races—over half of them solo. She's also tackled several epic multi-day races, marathons, XC events, and downhill enduros. On the gravel side, she has completed the Paris Ancaster race about a dozen times.

 These days, Andy isn’t racing as much but is instead focused on honing her mountain biking skills and enjoying quality rides. She spends about 90% of her time on her mountain bike, FatBikes during the winter, and dabbles in gravel riding in the spring. Each year, she makes it a point to travel to BC to further refine her MTB skills and experience some of the best trails in the world.

What Andy enjoys most is sharing incredible riding experiences with others, tackling new and challenging terrains, and bonding over the camaraderie of the cycling community. She often sweeps group rides, relishing the opportunity to mentor, chat, and witness fellow riders achieve amazing feats on their bikes.

 Andy’s Mentoring areas:

• Intro to Mountain Biking

• Intro to Gravel Riding

• Intro to Mountain Bike and Gravel Racing

• Intermediate and Advanced Offroad Bike Skills (mountain and gravel)

Bevin Reith

Bevin has been riding bikes since childhood but first took it on as a sport in 2010.  While mountain biking on alpine singletrack is his happy place he’s experimented with many types of cycling in order to expand the training envelope.  This extends to multi-sport where he snagged a win in the Xterra Quebec Duathlon in 2019.  The demands of multi-day stage racing, cycling vacations, training camps and loaded bikepacking adventures have been his focus for many years and he’s become an advocate of strength and cross training in order to remain injury free while maintaining a consistently high training load. 

He keeps the stoke level high with a quiver of MTB, CX, Gravel, Road and Track bikes and has competed in at least one race in each of those disciplines for variety.  He has completed at least one competitive event every year since he joined the LapDogs in order to stay sharp.  He maintains an active BikeShare subscription for commuting around the city. 

 Bevin’s Mentoring areas:

• Mountain Biking and Rider Skills Development

• Road Riding and Rider Skills Development

• Gravel Riding and Riders Skills Development

• Racing MTB and Gravel (XCO, XCM, UGS, stage racing)

• Bikepacking

Darcie Watson

In 2016 Darcie decided to try cycling as a sport and joined the LapDogs Cycling Club knowing nothing about bikes.  “The most wonderful people stepped up, taught me how to ride and encouraged me to sign up for my first races.” The past 9 years of riding and racing events have brought her close friends, a tremendous amount of fun and adventure, and a new sense of my own strength and resilience. 

“I'm so thankful for the support and encouragement I have received and I would love to pay it forward…. Mountain biking brings me the most joy but there is nothing like spending the whole day riding "no winter maintenance" trails and roads on my cyclocross bike.  Bucket list trips include mountain biking in Chile and Patagonia.”

 Darcie’s Mentoring areas:

• Intro to Road Riding

• Intro to Mountain Biking

• Intro to Gravel Riding

• Intro to Track Cycling

• Intro to Mountain Bike and Gravel Racing

• Chaperone for your first Mountain Bike or Gravel Race

Ian Ptolemy

Ian Ptolemy has found adventure on two wheels since childhood, first dabbling in road racing in his 20s (mid ‘80s), mtb ‘90s-‘00s, but dedicating more time to cycling after joining LapDogs in 2008.  Whether road, mountain, gravel or track, he's enjoyed the support and camaraderie of like minded friends and club members on and off the bike (did someone say beer?). 

The adventures slowly grew more epic, from weekly race series to 8 hour (team relay or solo) and 24 hour (team) mtb, Ontario Cups, to big international citizen events like L’etape du Tour, Leadville 100, Tour of Flanders & Paris Roubaix Fondos, to Team Pursuits on the track, climbing Haleakala, descending Moab’s Whole Enchilada, to Unbound Gravel 200.  

He always tries to keep training fun, finding that for him, enjoying time on the bike is paramount while pushing himself with some guidance paid off well enough.  For many, a more structured or prescribed approach would take them farther.  Spring or summer trips to ride in exotic places help!  Ian’s winters are more about skiing lately (instructor) so no fat-bike has entered the stable, yet, and the smart trainer is seeing less wear and tear.

Ian does much of his own bike maintenance; it’s good to at least know the basics, and have a trusted shop available.  He wishes he could also fix his own creaky knees, which currently limit the adventure epicness.

 Ian’s Mentoring areas:

• Road Riding and Rider Skills Development

• Gravel Riding and Rider Skills Development

• Developing endurance fitness or Endurance Racing Tips

Judy Overton

Judy rides mainly road and cyclocross (and occasionally gravel). She has been a commuter and utility cyclist for more than 25 years, but sold her kid hauling cargo bike in 2021 and replaced it with a light road bike. She joined LapDogs in 2022 to have a group to ride with. She enjoys suffering on hills on weekday workout rides and exploring on long weekend road (or gravel) rides.

After learning a bit about cyclocross in 2022 with the LapDogs intro to cyclocross rides, she did most of the OCups and Provincials in 2023, and the OCups, Provincials and Nationals in 2024. In the off-season she enjoys bouldering and weight training.

Judy’s Mentoring areas:

• Intro to Road Riding

• Intro to Gravel Riding

• Intro to Cyclocross racing

• Chaperone for your first Cyclocross Race

Maureen Wolfson

Maureen has been riding bikes for the past 35 years. She started out as a mountain biker and still mountain bikes and races today. She has raced weekly series races, 24hour mountain bike team races as well as the 7 day BC Bike Race (2015). Although she does not consider herself very competitive (she races for the social and fitness aspects), she still competes in races every year.

She has ridden road for 20 years but her true love is gravel riding. She participates in gravel rides, races and loves bikepacking. You can find her riding the 160km Simcoe Loop several times a year and she has completed the BT700 bikepacking route (twice), Log Driver's Waltz (one and done) as well as many other bikepacking routes.

She also dabbles (poorly) in cyclocross racing and rides a fatbike in the winter.

Maureen’s Mentoring areas:

• Intro to Road Riding

• Intro to Mountain Biking

• Intro to Gravel Riding

• Intro Bikepacking

• Intro to Mountain Bike and Gravel Racing

• Chaperone for your first Mountain Bike or Gravel Race

Michael Cranwell

Michael has been a cyclist for pretty much his entire adult life. This began in his early 20’s when he and his wife, Monica, purchased bicycles to get a little exercise and also to ease the reliance on the TTC. Cycling quickly became a passion and within no time he was looking at ways to increase his fitness, had fallen in love with mountain bikes and began to dabble in cross-country races. This passion led to the formation of the LapDogs Cycling Club, which in the early days quickly became one of the most respected MTB Race Teams on the Provincial circuit with multiple Provincial Champions and Team wins at 24 hour marathon and 8 hour relay events.

As the LDCC grew and evolved, so did Michael’s experience and amateur race portfolio. XC MTB led to Cyclocross, Gravel and yes… even a couple of road races to keep things interesting. Beyond local and provincial races, Michael has also participated in out of country events such as the infamous Leadville 100 in Colorado, the Wilmington 100 in Vermont (2-time podium) and multiple trips to the VT (Vermont) Overland. 

Now pretty much retired from racing, Michael still spends his life surrounded by bicycles and maintaining a modest level of cycling fitness (old racer habits never die). As a veteran cyclist, multi-discipline ex-racer… together with experience developed over the years as an LDCC Ride Leader, cycling bootcamp / spring training instructor, bike fitter, and tandem captain, he’s now looking at new ways to give back to the cycling community and is very excited about the LDCC’s Mentoring Program. 

 Michael’s Mentoring areas:

• Road Riding and Rider Skills Development

• Gravel Riding and Rider Skills Development

• Developing Cycling Fitness

• Bike Fit Issues and Concerns

• Chaperone for your first Gravel Race