My grandfather always tried to hide his smoking. After our bike rides to the coffee shop together he would walk out to the alley behind our fence and produce a packet of cigarettes from one of his many coat pockets. I walked up on him once, curious. He fumbled to put it out, turned away and muttered how I should never touch cigarettes. Somehow that’s one of the most vivid memories I have of him. He would tell me of his time sailing or his love for the sea, his work for the government in Colorado during the cold war and his love for fluid dynamics and other obtuse subjects. But somehow that’s one of the things I remember the most.

Grandpa Ralph died when I was a freshman in high school. As the cancer got worse we moved him from his home in Wisconsin to a hospice center in Austin. I visited him one day after school. I didn’t know what to do. I held his hand - still strong like I remembered it. But his face had lost color, and my mother told me this may be the last time I saw him. I told him everything would be ok. I knew it was a lie, but I didn’t know what else to say. I wish I could remember more about my grandfather. I never got the opportunity to know him well and I certainly didn’t take advantage of the time I did have with him. I only have shadows of the time we spend together. He died from cancer before I could sail the Atlantic with him or become the third generation engineer he wanted. I am riding to Alaska in memory of my grandfather, Ralph Carl Koeller.

I ride for my teammates. I ride to share the burdens and pains of cancer because however bad the disease is, alone it becomes even worse. I ride to share knowledge to fight cancer. Perhaps at the deepest level, I ride to find whatever splinters of meaning can be found in the wake of this terrible disease.

“Hard times require furious dancing” ~ Alice Walker.