A group of cyclists on a ride from Austin, Texas to Alaska will be making a pit stop at Revolution Place Thursday night. The Texas 4000 is made up of roughly 90 University of Texas at Austin students raising money in the fight against cancer, and 28 of them are on the route that takes them through Grande Prairie. Student cyclist Zoe Yin says she’s motivated through the 18 months of training and 70 day ride by her own experiences with cancer.
“I’ve had some really close people to me affected by cancer in some major ways; three of my four grandparents were diagnosed with cancer and two passed away. Also, one of my close friend’s father passed away last year from cancer, and those were experiences that were kind of hard and I wanted to take an active role in fighting the disease.”
She says the experience is also a physical, mental and emotional challenge for herself. However, it’s worth it to get to connect with communities along the way, like in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
“We got to meet a young cancer survivor who had a brain tumour and lost vision in one of her eyes, and is doing really well and raising a ton of money for cancer research, so we got to talk to her for a long time about her experiences; really inspiring young woman and it was such a pleasure to get to talk to her.”
Since Texas 4-thousand was started in 2003, more than $4.5 million has been raised in the fight against cancer. They also support grants for cancer-related projects.