When Bill de Groot hits the road for a two-day bike ride to Seattle on the Father's Day weekend, he'll have one less worry on his shoulder.
The New Westminster resident is taking part in the Ride to Conquer Cancer, which raises funds for the B.C. Cancer Foundation. Last May, his father was diagnosed with colon cancer.
"I said I am going to do that ride in your honour," he recalls telling his father. "It is a way I can train and deal with the struggles in life."
News of his father's cancer came at a time when de Groot was trying to lose weight after being warned that he was at risk of a heart attack, stroke or diabetes. He's since dropped from 250 to 175 pounds.
De Groot saw an advertisement for the Ride to Conquer Cancer and told his father that he wanted to take part in his honour.
In the past year, de Groot's father has undergone surgery, radiation and chemotherapy to tackle his colon cancer.
While the treatment took a ter-rible toll on his body, he learned last week that he's now cancer free.
"I was thinking we were going to have to be riding with my dad on my mind - is he alive, is he in terrible shape?" de Groot said. "For me that makes it even more special to be riding on Father's Day weekend."
The Ride to Conquer Cancer, which takes place on June 16 and 17, is a two-day bike ride from Vancouver to Seattle. Riders must raise $2,500 to participate in the event.
"I knew I was going to raise that in one email," de Groot said. "My business is with corporate types."
Sure enough, financial support started rolling in for de Groot's endeavour - but so did requests from people wanting to be part of the team. Alessandro Frau, general manager of the Terminal Pub, is one of the team's six members.
"There is, unfortunately, not a lot of people who have not been touched by cancer," Frau said. "In one way or another I am no different."
After a recent day of golfing in Squamish, Frau was riding his bike home to Burnaby as part of his training for the Ride to Conquer Cancer training.
"My chain broke off about 10 kilometres into the ride. There I was sitting on the side of the highway trying to fix my bike," he said. "Finally I got to Horseshoe Bay. I was so frustrated I was going to pack it in."
Frau had fixed the bike so he was able to pedal in higher gears, but it made for a difficult ride. He asked a woman for directions and mentioned he was training for the fundraiser.
"She said, 'I am a survivor. Thank you very much,'" he " recalled. "You walk past them all the time and you don't even know it. That was a moment where I thought I could ride all the way home. It puts it into perspective - my little dilemma on the side of the highway, it was nothing, it was a blip."
While people who are battling cancer now or have done so in the past are anonymous in day-to-day life, they'll be highlighted on the Ride to Conquer Cancer.
"We will know them by their yellow flag," de Groot said of flags on their bikes. "For me to do 125 km over a day, and do that two days in a row, is nothing compared to what my father has gone through."
De Groot had planned to ride solo, but it soon evolved into a team of six riders and several volunteers. While the past year has been hectic as de Groot has been training, fundraising, getting sponsorships for the team and helping his father through his battle with cancer, his plans were nearly derailed in January, when he was checked from behind in a hockey game and needed 16 hours of surgery to repair damage to his spinal cord.
"I didn't know if I was going to wake up and be able to walk again," he said. "It was terrible."
With one surgery behind him and a follow-up surgery scheduled in three months, de Groot is back on his bike and ready to lead his team in the Ride to Conquer Cancer.
"I was doing this ride in honour of my father," noted the team captain. "I never dreamed our team would have raised close to $20,000 for the B.C. Cancer Foundation."
De Groot, who has worked as a licensee of licensed merchandise for the past 25 years, has used his business acumen to raise funds, to rally sponsors for the team, to hold fundraisers and to help clothe and equip the team. Along the way, the One Epic Ride team has held fundraisers at the Terminal Pub, a golf tournament, a hockey fundraiser at Roger's Arena, and autograph signings with the likes of retired Canuck goalie Kirk McLean.
"Every single one of them has done something to get us to $20,000," de Groot said about his team. "Amazing. They all have their own reasons for doing it."
The final fundraiser is an Evening of Laughs at the Comedy Mix in Vancouver on Thursday, June 7.
Rather than sell all of the event's tickets and raise money only for their One Epic Ride team, members have offered tickets to some other teams that needed money to ensure team members were able to raise their $2,500 and take part in the Ride to Conquer Cancer.
"This is everyone's party," de Groot said. "There are a lot of people still a couple hundred dollars short and could use this."
Frau noted that the more riders taking part in the Ride to Conquer Cancer, the more awareness there is about the B.C. Cancer Foundation.
"Cancer does not discriminate," de Groot said. "It affects everybody."
For more information about the Ride to Conquer Cancer, visit www.conquercancer.ca and for more information about de Groot's team, visit www.oneepic journey.com.
