Pedaling for a Cure
Houston cops stop in Cave Spring to honor local cancer victims during a fundraising bike ride from Houston to Orlando.
It isn’t often that two bicyclists on U.S. 411 get a police escort into Cave Spring. Then again, it isn’t often those riders hail from the Houston, Texas, police department and are riding to raise funds to battle leukemia, lymphoma and other blood cancers.
Add in the fact that this year’s ride from Houston to Orlando is honoring a couple of Cave Spring folks — Amanda Ashworth and Ryan Lindsey, who both died from blood cancers in 2017 — and the reason for the big crowd at city hall in Cave Spring to welcome the delegation from Texas was very obvious.
Officers Marcos Betancourt and Christopher Kunkel were on the bikes as the team rolled into Cave Spring from Piedmont. Kunkel has been with the police force for 10 years, while Betancourt has been with the police for nine years. Each of them is participating in his seventh ride.
Kunkel said several of his friends and relatives have been stricken with blood cancers and that he rides in their honor each year.
“It’s pretty tough, but it doesn’t compare to what cancer patients go through,” Betancourt said. “When you just can’t go anymore you think about those patients and you keep moving.”
The officers, and a few civilians, ride 24 hours a day until they reach their destination. This year’s ride started Tuesday in Houston.
Four teams of officers are participating this year. Each group gets assigned five different legs — with most legs being about 120 miles — approximately nine hours of riding each. The officers ride relays, however Betancourt said the distance an individual rider is on the bike can vary from 13 to 80 miles a day.
Rip Montgomery, who owns two stores in downtown Cave Spring, said events like the ride Friday have become very important in Cave Spring. The ride was routed through Cave Spring this year after one of the organizers met Cave Spring DDA Director Sandra Lindsey at the beach in Florida earlier this year and learned of her son Ryan’s battle with one of the blood cancers that ended with his death last year at the age of 30.
The ride was also honoring former Cave Spring Elementary School teacher Amanda Ashworth, who died of a blood cancer disease at the age of 38.
“We wanted to bring out the community to share their support for this, and we’re real excited that they decided to come through Cave Spring,” Montgomery said.
The Houston police have conducted their Pedaling for a Cure event for 37 years. Detective Ken Nealy said they’ve been through every state, except Hawaii and into Canada on nine different occasions. Over the years, the police riders have raised close to $6 million for cancer research.
Nealy said the unit is looking to take Hawaii out of the list of states they haven’t ridden to in 2021 — the 40th anniversary year. The plan is riders would roll from Houston to California, board a cruise ship with lots of stationary bikes, continue to pedal to Hawaii on the ship and then ride around the islands.
After lunch in Cave Spring, the Houston team rode through Rome and out Kingston Highway.