Ride to Resilience | Official Full Film

By White Lotus Sports on September 10, 2026 • ( 0 )

When Geoff Livingston approached Steve Vanderhoek with the concept of a film about what pushes him to ride at the edge while balancing a real world career as a City of North Vancouver Fire Fighter, and what it’s like for his wife Kelsey to capture it from behind the camera, neither of them could have known how much deeper the story would become.

As Steve began therapy, he started turning the camera on parts of his life none of us had seen before. Years of frontline trauma as a firefighter. The weight he’d been carrying quietly. What actually happens when you finally put it down. And once Steve opened up, it didn’t stop with him. One by one, people started telling the truth about what they’d been through. His close friends and colleagues Matt Saely, Jeff Mccutcheon, Alan Easton, Mike Danks, Sam Van Born, fellow professional mountain biker and team mate Yoann Barelli, Dr. Duncan Shields, as well as Steve’s father, who decided it was time to share with the world all of the trama he has kept burried for the last 60 years.

We didn’t set out to make a film about mental health. We ended up making one anyway, because we realized that we had something that would mean so much more and impact many people dealing with similar challenges around the global, rather than just another mountain bike film.

To everyone who trusted us with their story, who showed up to ride, who sat in front of a camera and said the hard thing out loud: thank you. This film exists because you were brave enough to be honest, and we are so proud of what we built together.

This isn’t the end of it. It’s the start of the Ride to Resilience Association, community rides, events, and ongoing stories built to help people find their way through the hardest moments, the way Steve found his.

We made this hoping it helps someone see they’re not alone. If it saves even one life, or helps one person get through their worst day, it was worth everything that went into it.

Whose back do you have?

If this film means anything to you, please share it with family and friends.

To help support future community and mental health focused projects and get involved visit:

RideToResilience.com

Chapters

0:00 Early life and influences
3:37 Meeting Kelsey
6:14 Working together
8:54 Creative challenges
12:28 Reflections on risk
15:20 The toll of first response
17:03 Confronting trauma
20:26 Remembering Andrew Chu
22:47 The accident and aftermath
26:38 Emotional desensitization
28:01 Professional support
31:26 Finding peace in Utah
33:26 Musical interlude
35:56 Building a new vision
39:29 Managing fear and safety
42:11 Executing the project
46:52 Addressing root causes
50:32 Generational healing
54:08 Reconnecting with family
58:59 Perspective on first response
1:07:16 Tragedy and loss
1:10:16 Taking a knee
1:14:44 Breaking the silence
1:18:44 Changing the culture
1:27:44 The final challenge
1:36:21 Process over goals