Radnor man to ride 400 miles to raise money for childhood cancer ...

RADNOR — A Radnor man is hoping to move away from the red vs. blue debate to turn states orange for childhood cancer research.

As he has done for the past decade, Mike McIntyre is riding his bike to raise money as part of the Great Cycle Challenge. The bike challenge raise money for childhood cancer research.

Riders set a target for how many miles they want to ride during the month. Each rider also sets a donation target.

McIntyre is taking part in his 10th year riding in the challenge, an event that takes place each year in September during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

Each year he’s done the event, McIntyre comes up with a unique idea to help with fundraising. This year, he’s created a map, and each time he gets a donation from a new state, he colors it in orange. As of Sept. 23, he had donations from 31 states.

“When you watch TV, and you see all these political ads, and you see Wisconsin’s blue and Alabama’s red, I wanted to show how donors from across the country will donate. What I will do is create a map and color that map orange. Orange is the color for the Great Cycle Challenge so that I can visually show how everyone is coming together to support a cause like this,” McIntyre said.

So this year, besides setting goals for how many miles he wants to ride and how much money he raises, McIntyre also wants to reach 200 donors and get as many states as possible.

So, his idea is to reach out to others with larger social media networks to spread the word to all 50 states.

“And they ride and hopefully generate donations and those donations go to the Children’s Cancer Research Fund,” McIntyre said.

According to McIntyre, this particular fund concentrates on early-stage cancer research.

Another thing about cancer research funding is that only about four percent of the funding goes to childhood, and most of that money goes towards research that has already shown positive results. So they have a panel that looks at proposals that haven’t been fully tested but show promise.

McIntyre said it also goes towards cancers that have been hard to treat.

This year, he was riding for a girl from Virginia named Brianna. Brianna passed away at the age of 5 this past summer. So, this year, he will be riding in her memory.

Last year, his goal was to hit 999 miles to commemorate his 9th ride. This year, McIntyre has had to scale it back to 400 miles due to an injury he received earlier this year after getting struck by a car in Norway.

To learn more about McIntyre’s bike ride or donate, visit www.greatcyclechallenge.com/riders/MichealAMcIntyre and www.bikeonmike.com.