Heart&Stroke Big Bike rolls into your community to support life-saving research

The Big Bike team is now recruiting teams and riders!

OTTAWA, May 1, 2015 /CNW/ - Join the Heart&Stroke Big Bike and pedal through your community in support of heart disease and stroke research. Gather together your fun, high-energy team of up to 29 riders and get ready to ride! Local events happen from May to September in communities across Canada.

Your team will take part in a heart-pumping 15-20 minute ride aboard a bicycle built for 30 - it's a great way to unite you and your peers for a memorable,- and meaningful, team building experience. Everyone will feel the joy and exhilaration of living, and giving from the heart when they ride and fundraise on the Big Bike. You'll be joining our race to save lives by contributing to funding life-saving research.

Teams are made up of 29 enthusiastic riders who each commit to raise $50 or more to support heart disease and stroke research. On event day, one of our drivers will accompany you as you pedal through your community and celebrate your accomplishments!

Become a Captain and start a team, join an existing team, or sponsor a Big Bike rider.

It's easy to get started! Just follow the four Rs of Big Bike.

REGISTER your team online at www.bigbike.ca

RECRUIT 29 riders for your team.

RAISE at least $50 per rider to secure a seat on the Big Bike.

Be READY TO RIDE the Big Bike on your event day!

Big Bike. Big Hearts. Big Impact.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation is proud to celebrate more than 20 years of Big Bike across the country, and are deeply grateful for the support we receive from dedicated teams like yours! Last year over 70,000 riders, in over 200 communities coast to coast, helped raise over $8 million for research! This is helping us change the lives of not only heart disease and stroke patients, but all Canadians.

Thanks to the support of its donors and volunteers, the Heart and Stroke Foundation has played a significant part in research advances such as:

• The first in-utero surgery to correct a congenital heart defect
• Discovery of the hormone that controls high blood pressure
• The discovery that using a procedure called endovascular thrombectomy (ET) to treat major strokes caused by blood clots, cuts death by 50% and significantly reduces disability in survivors

Why your support matters
When you book a ride on the Heart&Stroke Big Bike, you help create survivors. Your donation or fundraising efforts will help fund research that is desperately needed to develop life-saving treatments that bring hope to heart disease and stroke patients.

Every seven minutes in Canada, someone dies from heart disease or stroke. Over 1.6 million survivors – and their families and caregivers – are living with the devastating after effects.

Join us! Have a blast riding the biggest bike in Canada - while raising awareness and funds for the Heart and Stroke Foundation to support life-saving research.

Help create more survivors by starting a team, joining a team, or donating to a rider today! Learn more and sign up at BigBike.ca

To find out more about how joining Big Bike will help you make a difference, hear about the Heart and Stroke Foundation research working to save lives, and watch videos of survivors sharing their stories, visit http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7502351-heart-and-stroke-foundation-big-bike/

The Heart and Stroke Foundation's mission is to prevent disease, save lives and promote recovery. A volunteer-based health charity, we strive to tangibly improve the health of every Canadian family, every day. Healthy lives free of heart disease and stroke. Together we will make it happen. heartandstroke.ca #CreateSurvivors

SOURCE Heart and Stroke Foundation

Image with caption: "To find out more about how joining Big Bike will help you make a difference, hear about the Heart and Stroke Foundation research working to save lives, and watch videos of survivors sharing their stories, visit http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7502351-heart-and-stroke-foundation-big-bike/ (CNW Group/Heart and Stroke Foundation)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20150501_C8582_PHOTO_EN_16071.jpg

For further information: http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7502351-heart-and-stroke-foundation-big-bike/

Related Links

http://www.heartandstroke.ca