Pan-Mass Challenge riders endure the heat in second day of bike-a-thon

WELLESLEY – Riders in the Pan-Mass Challenge bike-a-thon have raised more the $45 million so far this year as the ride entered day 2 Sunday.

They’re pushing past the intense heat this weekend, hoping to a raise a total of $66 million for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Riders who started Sunday in Bourne have 77 miles to go to reach the finish line in Provincetown.

Those who left Babson College in Wellesley around 6 a.m. were riding to complete the “Wellesley Century,” a 101-mile loop. Others rode a 50-mile course and some headed to Foxboro.

All of them are raising as money as they can for Dana-Farber.

“We ride for those we’ve lost. We ride for those living with cancer and we ride for those who, in the future, this is for the future,” rider Martha Gold told WBZ-TV.

“We can’t do our work without the money, without support, we can’t do our trials, we can’t do our drug development. None of it happens without the dollars. I’ve gladly spent $2 million of her dollars and the nice thing is we have things to show for it. That’s the difference. I’ve got drugs that we’ve gotten approved and we’re making a difference,” said Dr. Corey Cutler of Dana-Farber.

“This has been such an incredible support for investigators, for our clinicians at Dana-Farber. The cost of delivering cancer care is huge but, also we have so many great ideas to move cancer therapy forward and it’s often difficult to find funding for it. When we do find funding, it’s often through grants that take a long time to get and when we have a quick idea that may lead to a breakthrough very quickly, having funding from the PMC enables immediate breakthroughs and is just transformative for the fight against cancer,” Dr. Benjamin Ebert, the Director of Medical Oncology at Dana-Farber, told WBZ.

There’s still time to donate. For more information, visit pmc.org.