How Cycling Helped 3 Women Fight Breast Cancer
We're closing out Breast Cancer Awareness Month with a celebration of survivors who ride. Meet three women who used cycling to overcome obstacles and inspire others.
Lisa Frank, 53, Red Bank, NJ
Lisa Frank says a bicycle crash saved her life. She had been cycling since 1995, when she signed up for her first charity bike ride—the AIDS Ride. Two years later, Frank was in the best shape of her life, but she was blindsided shortly after the 1997 Tour of California AIDS Ride: She was diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer and needed treatment. Inspired by the AIDS Ride, she helped found the Young Survival Coalition (YSC) and the three-day Tour de Pink ride to raise money for breast cancer survivors.
In 2004, the first Tour de Pink hosted just six riders. Frank had recently been diagnosed with a cancer recurrence and underwent a double mastectomy, so riding wasn’t an option—but she still participated by raising money, assisting the riders, and organizing from the sidelines. By 2005, the ride was up to 10 participants, but Frank still couldn’t be on the course—she had just had a hysterectomy. As the official ride expanded to an edition on the East Coast, West Coast, and South, Frank finally got the green light to get back on the bike.
“Bicycling was always something that I found to be stress-free,” she says. “I rode a lot on my own, and I also enjoyed riding with friends. When I take my bike out, I just ride and think. It’s quiet time for me.”
Related: Why Cycling Makes You Happy
Here’s where “the crash that saved her life” comes in: A few years ago Frank, was riding with friends when she wiped out crossing railroad tracks. A bump on her neck appeared—and persisted for more than a month. She had doctors look at it, and they all determined it was just a swollen gland. But antibiotics did nothing for the issue, and Frank insisted on more post-crash tests. Her cancer had metastasized—a rare case of breast cancer spreading to the carotid artery. The Tour de Pink continued to grow and grow, and Frank continued to get treatments so she could get back to her bike. Then vertigo set in—the cancer had spread to her brain. Through it all, she continued to be active in organizing the ride and able to intermittently ride. But her balance suffered and numerous drug treatments meant that she was falling off her bike frequently.
“So here I am, 11 to 12 years after we started the Tour de Pink, not being able to ride,” Frank says. “Someone said to me, ‘You’re always inspiring other riders and telling them to do what they can and that it’s not a race, it’s a ride, just show up. If you can only ride to the first rest stop that’s fine because this ride is about survivors and the people who care for them. This year you’re going to have to follow through on what you’ve been saying to others.’ And she was correct—it was so powerful!”
Related: How to Encourage a Suffering Rider
This week, Frank is headed to the West Coast Tour de Pink, where a bike is waiting for her, but she says she won’t be packing a helmet, shoes, pedals, or anything to do with a bicycle.
“This ride is a part of who I am at this point, so I can’t not show up,” she says. “I can be there to help others ride and see how getting on a bike can help them to take back who they are.
“There’s a woman who finished chemo a week or two before the ride. She finished the ride last, and we all brought her in. This year? She was one of the lead riders on very tough terrain. It’s so inspiring to see these women who, one day, seem like they’re going to die, and the next day they’re on their bike—and a year later they’re doing the Tour de Pink.”
Riding helps survivors prove to themselves they can be strong and help others, Frank says.
“There are a lot of women who, when they’re first diagnosed, they have no idea how they’re going to live. They think, I’m done. And we say, go get a bike. We’ll help you learn to ride. We’ll help you train.
“It’s a great story—I wish it were happening to someone else, but if it’s gotta happen to me, I’ll do something positive with it.”
Suzanne Merritt, 48, Lennox, Massachusetts
Fitness professional Suzanne Merritt had long been a cyclist, but always more of a recreational rider. After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011, her riding took on a purpose. While she was sick, a friend talked her into doing the Pan-Mass Challenge, a two-day, 192-mile ride that raises money to fight cancer. Initially the idea seemed crazy, but the more she learned about the ride—and considered joining a team—the more excited she got.
“The idea just clicked with me,” she says. “Throughout my illness it just gave me a sense of hope and connected me to something bigger and made me realize I would not only make a difference in cancer, but I could also become a better cyclist.”
Merritt underwent a double mastectomy, eight rounds of aggressive chemotherapy in the spring and summer of 2012, and two subsequent reconstruction surgeries—one in October 2012 and one in January 2013. Then she signed up to ride.
Fresh off completing treatment, she only had three months to train and wasn’t super-confident she could finish.
“It was a real challenge for me,” she says. “It never even entered my realm of possibility that I could nearly ride a double-century. But when that was put before me—it’s almost like I didn’t think I could do it, but I didn’t question it: I just did it. The moment I completed it was cathartic. It made me feel alive in a way I hadn’t before. Having cancer really connected me to something greater than myself, that I wouldn’t have tried without it.”
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Participating in the Pan-Mass Challenge gave her such a huge sense of accomplishment that she decided to ride it again in 2014 and 2015.
“I put in 1000 miles of training this year, and it sort of solidified for me, like, ‘I got this,’” she says. “Now it’s just become a part of my life, and it’s my way to give back for getting a second chance.”
She also rewarded herself with a dream bike—a white and purple Trek Domane 6.
“This year was the first year I rode on it, and it was fantastic,” she says. “Being sick changes you, Now I just think, ‘Why wait to do it—just do it.’ My bike carried me across the state of Massachusetts again, and this year I raised over $14,000! The sky’s the limit.”
Hel Parkes, 50, Australia
Hel Parkes says she was never a sporty kid. But after being diagnosed with breast cancer—and subsequently, bowel cancer—after her 40th birthday, she discovered how exercise helps manage anxiety and stress. But cycling wasn’t her first choice; she came to it from an even more unlikely sport: trapeze. Breast cancer and reconstruction destroyed her upper-body muscles, but she wasn’t ready to adjust to the weakened body her surgeon told her to expect.
“During recovery, I honestly didn’t have much time or energy to think about exercise,” she says. “Over time, I gradually regained confidence and enough guts to believe that I could have pain but do it anyway. So I took up flying trapeze. This tested my fears and pushed me right through the pain barrier in more ways than one. After a couple of years, I felt I had ticked that box and took up mountain biking instead. It’s a family sport and introduced me to so many people. It’s an incredible drug and extremely addictive!”
Today, Parkes rides mountain bikes with local and regional clubs—and even races. She’s also started road cycling and is dabbling with track.
“Track bikes have to be the weirdest of them all,” she says. “Whoever invented a bike with no gears or brakes and dictated that you ride around and around in circles anti-clockwise has me concerned for their mental health!”
Cycling has completely changed her outlook and fitness—as well as her self-esteem, she says. This year, Parkes started a new mountain biking club called The Dirty Janes to get more women biking.
Related: Become a Better Mountain Biker with These Tips from Emily Batty
She has some powerful advice for other survivors looking for support through recovery.
“Feel the pain and do it anyway,” she says. “Get out and exercise as often as you can and pat yourself on the back for what you do. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t as fast as you were last year. Surround yourself with positive people. I have found that those who ride bikes are far more positive and energetic than those who don’t. Use that energy to help your journey. Reach out to women’s cycling groups and don’t be afraid to show your emotions. Women have an incredible ability to empower and support each other.”
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