Charity ride nets a record $33m

The Pan-Massachusetts Challenge offers several one- and two-day routes that cover 360 miles in 46 cities and towns. About 5,100 cyclists participated this year, a 20 percent increase from 2006. (WENDY MAEDA/GLOBE STAFF/FILE 2007)

Again breaking its records, the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge this year raised more than twice the amount ever contributed to charity by an athletic fund-raising event in the United States - $33 million - and for the first time will donate the whole sum to cancer care and research, according to organizers of the annual bicycle ride.

Throughout the 1990s, between 92 and 99 cents of every dollar raised by the August event was given to the Jimmy Fund, the fund-raising arm of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

But this year the entire $3.3 million cost of producing the ride was underwritten by corporate and foundation sponsors, registration fees, merchandise sales, and income from special functions, said PMC founder Billy Starr - allowing 100 percent of rider-raised revenue to go to charitable purposes.

This year's gift represents the single largest contribution ever made to the Jimmy Fund and amounts to nearly 50 percent of the fund's annual revenue, said Dana-Farber spokesman Steven Singer. Last year, the PMC raised $26 million for the Jimmy Fund.

The Pan-Mass donation "makes a huge and very critical impact at Dana-Farber," Singer said. "It makes so much cutting-edge research possible, it makes investments in some of the new science faster, and it helps us provide a level of patient care that I don't think any other place can do."

Now in its 28th year, the PMC offers several one- and two-day routes that cover 360 miles in 46 cities and towns statewide. Some 5,100 cyclists participated this year, a 20 percent increase from 2006.

Starr attributed the spike in ridership to an "increasing groundswell of popularity" in the ride.

"There's an emotional content to the weekend that overlaps an incredibly well-run event, and it just keeps surging," said Starr, a Newton native who started the event in 1980 after losing his mother, an uncle, and a cousin to cancer by the time he was 27.

This year, a new one-day Sunday route was added to accommodate additional cyclists. The route appealed to "people who can't do big distance or big time or are more nervous about the fund-raising minimum," Starr said.

Cyclists must raise between $1,000 and $3,600, depending on how far they ride.

The shorter routes are also ideal for "PMC elders who might be becoming less physically able," he added. "It lets them keep their hand in the event as they draw back their own participation."

Sacha Pfeiffer can be reached at pfeiffer@globe.com.