Team I Hate Cancer didn’t start as some polished nonprofit initiative or a boardroom brainstorm. It began the way a lot of questionable-but-glorious ideas do: a few friends, a couple bikes, and someone muttering the fatal phrase, “How hard could it be?”

The answer revealed itself quickly—hard enough to make your legs howl, your lungs bargain, and your brain question your life choices somewhere around mile 240. But this wasn’t about easy. It never was.

Brian, JB, Mike, Nathan, and Tim rolled out of Philadelphia with a simple plan that looked insane on paper: ride all the way to South Bristol, Maine. Six hundred and twenty-nine miles, door to door. Just five guys and an idea fueled by stubborn hope and a quiet fury at what cancer does to families.

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