In a way, you could say that riding a bike has saved my life twice.

If I hadn’t fallen off of one in 2014, I might never have learned that I had cancer. And if I hadn’t started the Arizona Trail 300 two years later, I might never have discovered riding’s ability to take my mind off the disease.

My story begins

I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma at age 36. I’d been cruising around my Corpus Christi neighborhood...