Motorcycle Ride for Dad Participants Enjoy Warm Welcome in Mundare

Motorcycle Ride for Dad Participants Enjoy Warm Welcome in Mundare

Michelle Pinon News Advertiser

An estimated 750 bikers rode into the Town of Mundare on June 10 and stayed for a couple of hours to enjoy down home hospitality and lunch during the Motorcycle Ride For Dad which raises funds for prostate cancer research.

Established in 2007, the Edmonton Chapter of the Motorcycle Ride For Dad has raised more than $3 million for the fight against prostate cancer.

John Breen, who is involved in sponsorship and held the position of Ride Caption for this year’s edition of the Edmonton Motorcycle Ride For Dad, stated: “It started off in Ottawa with two guys, Garry Janz and Byron Smith, who had a friend who was dying of cancer and they asked if there was anything we can do for you. The doctors said they know what it is, but they don’t know why and they don’t know how so get some people together and get some research going and that’s basically how it happened. Three good friends who rode motorcycles together and one of them near death and it went from there.”

Participants heading over the railway tracks to the downtown area.

(Michelle Pinon/Photo)

Breen said the Ride For Dad takes place in every province and in every territory throughout the nation. “The people are all in. As I said this morning, one family, one fight, and here we are.”

Co-organizer Terry Willisko said it feels great to be back in the community Mundare has always been a great supporter of us. The Town of Mundare has been incredible. Stawnichy’s has been incredible.” Co-organizer Nelson Santos added, “They have stepped up fabulously, and done an amazing job.” He introduced researchers Desmond Pink and Catalina Vasquez. “These people do amazing things.”

Official Ride for Dad flag.

(Michelle Pinon/Photo)

Pink said that, “Coming here to do this re-energizes us every single year. To get to that first big success there’s a lot of failures and this gives us energy to keep doing this.” Vasquez added, “This is very

powerful. We have hundreds and hundreds of people all working together towards a common goal not to have a single man die of prostate cancer.”

She went on to say, “Our hope as well is that we start to get more early detection because more and more men will get screened.” Pink said the most important thing avoid unnecessary biopsies so they actually get treated as early as possible.

Ride For Dad volunteers Dwight Thomas and Gordon Creelman.

(Michelle Pinon/Photo)

In terms of where funds raised through the ride have been allocated, Vasquez replied, “We have used all the money to develop a better test to diagnose prostate cancer. That is very important because right now the screening test for prostate cancer is PSA, (prostate specific antigen) which is very unspecific for cancer. That means that up to 85 percent of men with elevated PSA don’t have cancer, but because they have an elevated PSA a lot of them are going for biopsy to see if they cancer or not.

Biopsies are invasive procedures that come with adverse events. Some men have actually died of because of the biopsy and did not have cancer. So, since we started out doing our research more than 10 years ago we knew we need something that was better than PSA and less invasive than biopsies to start diagnosing men with prostate cancer.

So, we have run clinical studies. We have recruited thousands of patients to validate the test that we developed for prostate cancer. So, basically when a man has an elevated PSA they are going to run our test. The tests predicts the results of the biopsy. With that we’re hoping to avoid close to 40 percent of unnecessary biopsies in the province.”

How close are you to implementing this test? Vasquez responded, “We did all of the validation. We already met with the FDA and with Health Canada. We are partnering with DynaLife Medical Labs here in Alberta and we’re launching in either September or October of this year.” The plan is to make the test available across Canada and the United States in the future.

Mundare Mayor Cheryl Calinoiu expressed her gratitude to Ride For Dad organizers and participants on behalf of town council, business owners and community members for “honouring our town with such a meaningful charity event.

Watching the bikes drive in was so overwhelming and beautiful. People I have talked to on Saturday either know someone or have went through it themselves. I look forward to another event like this to come to our town.”

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