NYC Pedals for Cancer Research As 'Cycle For Survival' Event Hits Midtown
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) –This weekend New Yorkers will come together for an event to raise money for rare cancers.
Cycle for Survival will take place at the Equinox gyms on Lexington Ave and 5th Ave, as the facilities are set to clear out their equipment to make way for stationary bikes.
Co- Founders and husband and wife, David and Jennifer Linn founded the fundraiser in 2007. It was three years after Jennifer was diagnosed with the rare cancer, sarcoma.
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The event even has celebrity participants.
Ethan Zohn, winner of the third season of Survivor and who is also battling cancer.
"The beauty of the event is anybody can sit on a stationary bike and pedal."
Zohn joined the cause when he met Jennifer Linn at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 2009.
That same year, Cycle for Survival became an official event for Sloan-Kettering. The event has funded 25 clinical trials in the past five years.
"I didn't know what to expect," says Zohn, "I figured maybe there's like a bunch of like, I don't know, old people biking and like not too energetic but when I tell you, you walk in there, the music's blasting, the cycle instructors are just yelling orders at you, getting you motivated, keeping you pumped up."
Zohn says this event is like no other in that the money raised gets put into use right away.
"I'm just kind of living proof that the money is going to people like me. It's actually inside my body and its working and all the work that these doctors do every single day is helping the lives of real people like me."
Cycle for Survival now takes place across the country. This weekend there are events in Washington D.C., Chicago, and New York. Zohn participated at the event on February 4th in San Francisco and will also ride this weekend in New York.
The event in New York on Saturday begins at 10:00am and on Sunday at 8:00am. So far, this year the event beat another record and has raised over 7 million dollars.
