Can you ride more than 100 miles on a bicycle in a single day? In August, 31-year-old Hoboken resident Josh Cohen will ride 190 miles in two days during the annual Pan-Massachusetts Challenge (PMC), one of the country’s largest charity bike-a-thons to raise money for cancer research.
Over 5,000 riders from eight countries will set out on one of 10 different cycling routes through a total of 46 Massachusetts communities. The longest and best-known is the 190-mile ride from Sturbridge, Mass. in the center of the state to Provincetown, Mass. at the tip of Cape Cod Bay.
“Part of the reason why I love to ride is because it’s a great excuse to get outside,”
“It gets pretty addicting.” – Josh Cohen
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PMC has raised $270 million over the past 31 years and aims to raise $31 million this year alone. Riders range in age from 13 to an astounding 86 years old and come from all walks of life. Doctors ride alongside patients.
Over 300 of this year’s riders are cancer survivors or current patients.
The average rider has raised $6,000 in donations, depending on the route. The 10 courses are of varying lengths – the longest being 190 miles, the shortest being a 47-mile circuit.
Finding a cure
Raising funds to find a cure holds personal meaning to Cohen, whose father fought the disease more than 30 years ago.
“My father had a pretty long battle with cancer,” Cohen said. “I was just old enough to know what was going on, but I didn’t fully understand the seriousness of the disease.”
Cohen’s father was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a wide group of blood cancers that attack white blood cells, creating problems for the lymph nodes and the immune system.
After two years struggling with cancer, Cohen’s father underwent what was then a radical new treatment, a bone marrow transplant, at John Hopkins Medical Center. It saved his life.
“There weren’t that many centers that were doing transplants at the time,” Cohen said. “So he was fortunate to even get accepted.”
Race around NYC
The Pan-Massachusetts isn’t Cohen’s first race, although at almost 200 miles it will be the longest. He has already participated in the Long Island Harbors Ride, a 100-mile one-day race, and the Five Borough Bike Tour, a 42-mile race through all of New York City’s five boroughs.
“At about the 60-mile mark you start to feel it,” Cohen said about riding upwards of 100 miles in a single day. “It sucks. Not going to lie.”
The New York City race in May was a bit more relaxed, he said. It began in Battery Park and stretched through Central Park into the Bronx over the 59th Street Bridge, eventually ending under the Verrazano Bridge in Staten Island.
“It was really crowded in Manhattan,” he said. “But once you got onto FDR [Drive] it was actually pretty cool. They close down the streets, so it was really exciting.”
For Cohen, the progression of bicycling technology has been exciting to watch since he began riding only a few years ago.
“It’s cool to see the difference between riding a crappy bike to getting on a better bike,” he said. “As you progress, it’s amazing to see how much it actually matters.”
But most of all, bicycling is a great way to stay in shape.
“It’s an unbelievable form of exercise,” he said. “It gets pretty addicting.”
For more information on races in the area go to: www.bikenewyork.org. For more information on the PMC, or to make a financial contribution to Cohen, visit www.pmc.org, or call (800) 932-9253.
Sean Allocca can be reached at editorial@hudsonreporter.com