Editor’s Note: Leigh Pate is a writer and photographer in Seattle who has biked across the US and through India. She reached out to Seattle Bike Blog offering to write about her experience biking in Obliteride as she continues healing from a battle with cancer. You can donate to her Obliteride fundraising campaign here.

“What kind of cancer did you have?”

I slow down and drop back alongside an older man sitting very upright on sturdy bike with a rack and two big mirrors jutting out the side of his handlebars.

“Breast cancer,” I answer. “Did you have cancer, too?”

“Lymphoma,” he answers. “Just finished radiation a year ago.”

We are riding the 50-mile route of Obliteride, a bike ride to raise money for Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

We ride and chat. He explains that the large side mirrors allow him to ride after he fractured his neck and his neck was fused. The mirrors help him see because he can’t turn his head. He laments that the route is a little easier than he was hoping for. Maybe next year he’ll sign up for the century for a little more challenge.

We talk about how coming back from cancer means learning how to do what you love with a whole new body. And we laugh at the once unthinkable accommodations we learned to make so we can do what we love. For him, big side mirrors. For me, special garments to manage side effects from surgery.

Obliteride raises money for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. At a time when government research funding has been cut and research has become more expensive, leading cancer research centers like the Hutch are turning to their patients and their community to fill the gap and keep innovative, outside-the-box research funded.

In its second year, this ride is well-supported and well-organized, with routes suitable for many skill levels. Pace-lining teams raced through the century or the two-day route while occasional riders huffed up hills on borrowed bikes, attempting their longest ride ever to shouts of encouragement. (more…)