Cancer is an awful disease. About 28 million people in the world are fighting. Fighting to survive. In the Netherlands, cancer is the number one cause of death in men and women. One in three people get some form of cancer at some point in life. It's a leading cause of death world wide. A report from the World Health Organization, published in 2003, let us know that in 2000 10 million people suffered from cancer, probably increasing with 50% to 15 million in 2020. In 2008 7.6 million people died from cancer (13% of all deaths).
Everybody has a story:
We're not intending to throw all kinds of creepy statistics at you. These numbers just show more objectively and more clearly than words can express that "it" is out there and everybody knows it. Up close and personal. Almost everybody has a 'cancer story'. Sobering, emotional, painful, life altering stories about:
husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, fathers, mothers and children.
I don't know anyone that hasn't lost somebody to cancer. I don't know anyone that doesn't know someone personally affected by cancer at this very moment. It's not only those suffering from the disease itself, but also the close family and friends that are having to deal with the consequences and in the worst cases with the loss of a loved one.
We too have stories. Our grandfathers died from cancer. I would so have loved to have known them better, knowing them growing up to be a teenager, to an adult. A great aunt died from cancer. We have students with family members fighting cancer. A sister fighting cancer, a mother fighting cancer...
A lot is known about cancer. But there's also still a lot we do not know. There are still mysteries to be solved. For those to be solved, money is needed. For the right support and assistance for those fighting the disease, money and expertise are needed. To prevent cancer from entering our futures, we need research, education, change, expertise... And money will come in very handy to actually make it happen! We are, both of us, educators in one way or another. We're no medical specialists. Money is a small contribution we will be able to make in the fight against cancer. Show our support to those affected. Inspire people to keep fighting, to not give up!
Six times the Alpe d'Huez (Alpe d'HuZes)
In order to raise as much money as possible, we've set ourselves a challenge. A challenge to show our support, to raise money, to inspire... This obviously calls for a big challenge: We are setting out to "take" the Alpe d'Huez. Not once. No. That wouldn't be a huge challenge like cancer. We are going to try and cycle up this mountain 6 times. To be more precise:
6 times in one day.
Right... so for those of you who don't know the Alpe d'Huez, it's a mountain. In the Alps. In Europe. And almost always a part of the track of the Tour de France. And whenever it is part of the Tour, usually, the mountain will be occupied by people from the Netherlands, effectively turning it into a Dutch mountain for a short period of time. As we all know, we don't actually have a mountain in the Netherlands. Just hills. And wind. The Alpe d'Huez is 13.8 km long, has 21 hairpin corners, has a height difference of 1060 meters and has an average climbing percentage of 7.9% of which the first 1.5 km has 16.4%. The fastest cyclist to ever climb this mountain, was Marco Pantani, needing a little over 37 minutes. An average amateur cyclist needs around 1.5 hours to complete the climb.
We have received an official e-mail today, informing us that we have entered the event and are expected to ride on the 6th of the 6th in 2013!
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