Meet the LaSalle man who has cycled 53,000 kilometres during the pandemic

Matthew St. Amand picked up a cycling habit during the pandemic, and that habit has turned into a bit of an addiction.

He has cycled more than 53,000 kilometres in Windsor-Essex since May of 2020.

Along with the riding, St. Amand also did some writing.

St. Amand joined Windsor Morning to talk about his book: The Kilominator: Cycling Through a Global Pandemic In Search of Sanity & Stability. 

Here is part of his conversation with host Nav Nanwa.

Nav Nanwa: So the pandemic hits, you're in your late 40s. What is it that pushed you to pick up cycling?

Matthew St. Amand: Well, I realized that, with all the time on our hands, I could choose which "95" I wanted to be. I could sit back, eat, drink and do nothing and become 395 pounds, or I could get my head together and get on my bike and try for 195.

I've struggled with my weight my entire adult life. So I thought, you know what? This is time to get smart and at the same time, a way to sort of deal with the anxiety and the mental health issues that arose at that time.

Were you a cyclist beforehand?

I would go out sporadically on my bike, maybe once a week. If I went three times or four times a month, I would consider that really rigourous.

But then when the pandemic hit, a friend had recommended an app and was only when I started recording my cycling data, just seeing how far I went, and then you get to see how it adds up. I very quickly became obsessed with the numbers.

So how many kilometres have you racked up so far?

In 2023, this year, it's just under 2,900.

Twenty-nine hundred kilometres. Wow. And this is someone that just recently, like you say, picked up cycling?

Yeah, it was May 2020. I went out and I finally got myself a decent bike. I'd had a department store