PROVINCETOWN — “Billy, why do we do this in August?” Truro farmer Dilys Staaterman recalls asking some years ago as she rested at a water stop during the Pan-Mass Challenge. It’s a fair question — the 186-mile bike ride from Sturbridge to Provincetown happens at the hottest time of year and when roads are busiest.
Staaterman was talking to Billy Starr, who founded the ride in 1980, after his mother died from melanoma, as a fundraiser to support the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Starr told Staaterman that August is when the Mass. Maritime Academy, a mainstay overnight shelter for riders, has empty dorms.
The Challenge is a two-day ride with an overnight stop in Bourne. Some riders add an unofficial “Day Zero,” honoring the original three-day length of the Challenge, beginning near Stockbridge, at the New York border. There are several route options with various lengths, ending at multiple finish lines. Others ride PMC “Reimagined,” an option that emerged during Covid-19, when a gathering of thousands of riders wasn’t safe. It remains a popular choice because it allows riders to participate on their own timelines.
The 186-mile route that ends in Provincetown is the event’s most popular one. Numbers aren’t yet in for last weekend’s ride, the PMC’s 44th, because the ride’s fundraising time frame extends into October, but over its 43 years, the Pan-Mass Challenge has raised $900 million, according to the PMC website. Riders raised $69 million in 2022. PMC has become Dana-Farber’s largest funding source, surpassing money raised for the cancer center by the Red Sox.
Staaterman, who is 77, spoke to the Independent before setting out on her 14th PMC this year. “I’ve always ridden my bike everywhere,” she says. She rides every day, all year, she says, unless there’s ice on the road. She initially put off riding in the Challenge, though, because of the fundraising required. But she eventually got over that hurdle. “People have been just so generous,” she says.
The hurdle — each rider must raise a minimum of $6,000 — is perhaps made achievable by cancer’s wide reach. “Cancer knows no boundaries, has no empathy or compassion,” says Paul Savage, 65, a rider since 2007 from Wellfleet.
“Everybody has been touched by cancer in some way,” says South Wellfleet PMC rider Fran Sullivan, who is 61. “It’s a cause that a lot of people want to get behind and contribute to.”
Sullivan lost her father to cancer when she was a child and says she has many family members who are cancer survivors. That has given her “lots of motivation to raise the money and pedal the miles,” she says. She has been riding the PMC since 1986. She’s missed only two rides, she says, “one to attend a wedding, and one because I rode my bicycle across the country.”
Elaine Gremila’s twin brother, Michael, died just before her 13th PMC ride. The 69-year-old owner of the Chocolate Cafe in Eastham says that’s why she keeps riding. She feels like Michael joins her as she pedals up the difficult hills.
Many riders form teams and some ride sporting team jerseys emblazoned with team names and logos. Teams are often named for loved ones who have cancer, or for survivors, or those who have died from the disease. Savage is a proud member of Paul’s Posse. The team is named for Paul Schaye, a cancer survivor who now rides the PMC with his namesake team every year.
At the finish line, supporters can be seen wearing team T-shirts, too, with names like “Team Kermit” and “Forza-G.” One T-shirt seen this year said “Bikes Kill Cancer.” Groups of onlookers erupt in cheers as bikers whose shirts match theirs cross the finish line.
Though Savage says cyclists ride the PMC to end “the emperor of all maladies,” he says there’s joy in the Challenge. “We have fun,” he says. “But we never lose sight of why we ride.”
Savage was treated for a sarcoma at Dana-Farber in 2019. “But I don’t ride because I was once a patient there,” he says. “I ride for people who are not as lucky as me. Pain never felt so good.”
Staaterman calls the ride “extraordinarily moving,” a common sentiment among PMC riders.
Eastham resident and Truro Health Agent Emily Beebe, 59, who this year joined the PMC for a second time after an 18-year hiatus, has a vivid memory of a place on that first ride where “two rivers of riders merged, one from Wellesley and one from Sturbridge, and it feels like you’re in this river, and everybody’s heading to Bourne,” she says. “The group gets bigger, and it’s just fabulous.”
“I have cried while passing survivors who were there cheering me on,” says Savage. “I should be cheering them on. I’m just a guy on a bike.”
