The Great Cycle Challenge begins. What to know about the bicycling fundraiser

The Great Cycle Challenge begins with the start of September, when thousands of bicyclists in the United States will be pedaling their bikes — while also helping raise money to defeat childhood cancer.

The eighth annual month-long fundraisers were created in 2015 by the Minneapolis-based Children's Cancer Research Fund and include riders in the United States, Canada and Australia. The Canadian leg of the fundraiser took place in August, the U.S. one runs through September, and the Australian one is in October.

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The fundraiser tasks bicyclists with setting a mileage goal, sharing their profiles via social media to collect donations, and then logging rides. Participants ride and then post mileage to their own GCC page, either manually or by using an application like Strava or MapMyRide.

So far in 2022, nearly 30,000 U.S. bicyclists have signed up and raised more than $3 million. The event has raised $52,524,379 for CCRF since it began in 2015, according to the GCC website. Riders have covered 25,647,476 miles in that span.

Illinois is the third-highest fundraising state so far in 2022, behind only California and Florida. Thousands of riders across 20 city-based Illinois chapters have raised nearly a quarter million dollars — numbers expected to climb as the challenge officially begins Sept. 1.

The Peoria chapter of the challenge includes about 100 riders who have raised about $8,000. Rockford's group also is more than 100 so far, with about $1,300 raised. The Springfield group has 57 riders who has raised more than $2,000. Riders also can create teams, unrelated to geographic location.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Great Cycle Challenge fundraiser begins to fight childhood cancer