[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

This sad news was starting to circulate earlier this week while it was still unconfirmed. The Alberta cycling community lost a giant with the tragic death of Dr. Darren Markland while mountain biking out in the Nordegg area.

Known around the Edmonton area for his coffee machine/pizza oven cargo bike, towing a canoe by bike to commute partially to work on the North Saskatchewan river, his passion for shredding mountain bike trails just as easily as commuting to his shifts at the hospital by bike.

He was also a tireless advocate for proper healthcare spending in this province, and his tweets as an ER doc during the pandemic were a glimpse into a world of chaos that he seemed to be able to navigate with grace, and words of hope that struck a chord with so many.

I was lucky enough to meet him once, back when Calgary hosted the Winter Cycling Congress in 2019. He brought down the coffee cargo bike, and at the usual Friday morning "Coffee Outside" gathering he slung the beans and chatted with everyone. He is also the rider that introduced me to the world of heat exchanger masks for the cold winter riding.

We lost one of the good ones for sure, gone far too soon. RIP to the good doctor.

https://cyclingmagazine.ca/mtb/edmon...rren-markland/

Obituary from the Edmonton Journal:

https://edmontonjournal.remembering....and-1093111486

Darren did not want a formal funeral. If you are reading this and want to honour him the way he would have wanted, do what he did every day: go outside, ride your bike, enjoy nature, and do something kind for a stranger.



The human heart is

The size of a

Fist

Clenched.

Indefatigable, and infallible

On pain of death.

And yet it skips

At the most curious

Times,

To remind us of its finite

Beats.

And perhaps to attend us

To use them both wisely

And with abandon.



— Darren Markland, August 2025