Bike ride takes aim at cancer, honors memory of victims

Riders took off from Sturbridge on the first day of the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge yesterday. An estimated 5,500 cyclists participated in the event, which is expected to raise $34 million. (CHRISTINE HOCHKEPPEL FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE)

NORTH DIGHTON - Their sisters died of breast cancer a month apart, and about three months too soon to watch Dave Eberhart and Pete Bromann finish a 190-mile bike ride today in Provincetown.

"We were hoping she was going to be here. Both of them," Eberhart, 45, said of his sister, Beth Grant, and Bromann's sister, Mary Shick.

"That was the plan," Bromann, 43, said with a nod.

The friends, who are part of the Phat Tuesday biking team in Franklin, started their journey at Sturbridge yesterday along with thousands of other cyclists in the 29th annual, two-day Pan-Massachusetts Challenge. The event requires each participant to raise between $1,300 and $4,000 for the Jimmy Fund, which supports cancer research and treatment at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

At a lunch stop yesterday at Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School in North Dighton, Eberhart and Bromann were surrounded by friends and family, as well as members of Edgewood Church of Christ in Mansfield, which the two attend. They all wore shirts with pictures of Grant and Shick on the back.

Grant was 41 and lived in Charlotte, N.C.; Shick was 48 and lived in Millbrae, Calif. They died in April and May. Grant had battled cancer for six years, Shick for eight.

On the front of Eberhart and Bromann's pink and purple jerseys were a pair of boxing gloves next to the words: "Breast Cancer, It Ain't For Sissies."

Grant had designed the logo and slogan, her family said. Grant's mother, Sandy Eberhart, pointed to other cyclists wearing personalized jerseys or pictures pinned to their backs.

"That represents who they're riding for, and that makes it real," she said.

The Pan-Massachusetts Challenge began in 1980, when Billy Starr, who had lost his mother, uncle, and cousins to cancer, biked 220 miles from Springfield to Provincetown. He and 35 other cyclists raised $10,200 that year.

Organizers estimate 5,500 cyclists participated in this weekend's event, which is expected to raise $34 million.

"It's an inspiration, it's a motivation, it's what I expect and it's what I hope for," Starr said in a phone interview during a break in his ride yesterday.

Riders can choose from seven different routes, ranging from 47 miles to 190 over one or two days, a spokeswoman, Jackie Herskovitz, said.

The money that cyclists must raise starts at $1,300 for those riding the shortest distance, Herskovitz said. Those going the full two-day, 190-mile stretch must raise $4,000.

Each dollar that riders raise goes to the Jimmy Fund, so the event relies on more than $3 million of corporate underwriting and in-kind donations, plus more than 2,800 volunteers, Starr said.

"It's an impressive thing to witness, what happens when people work well together," Starr said. "It's the best of human nature."

Cyclists in North Dighton yesterday shared stories of how their rides were fueled by the losses of loved ones to cancer.

For Tom Stavrish, it was his daughter, Michelle Stavrish Turner, who died in 2005 of lung cancer. She was 39.

"This one here says, 'Hey, Dad, get on a bike, would you?' " Stavrish, who is 66 and lives in Mendon, said yesterday as he pointed to his daughter, Suzanne Walton. This is the third year they've participated in the ride.

Maddie Hanna can be reached at mhanna@globe.com.