A Salute to Samantha

In the June issue, we’ll do a re-cap of the 3-State 3-Mountain Challenge and acknowledge the many volunteers who made the event possible and fun for those of us who rode.

Right now, I’d like to tell you a bit about our honorary lead rider at the 3-State, Samantha Gilley, a 17-year-old from Flintstone, Georgia, who is blind and a cancer survivor. Many of us met Sam for the first time at our monthly meeting in April. She joined us with her uncle, Barry Gilley, and a family friend, Larry Leigh. And I shouldn’t forget Peach, Sam’s Seeing Eye dog and companion.

Larry had contacted the Club a few weeks earlier to see how we could help with Samantha’s upcoming “Sites Unseen” tour from Chattanooga to Memphis. Several years ago the Rush Miller Foundation and the Lance Armstrong Foundation gave Samantha a tandem bicycle. With the help of sighted pilots, Samantha will travel the full distance by tandem and arrive in Memphis in time to celebrate Survivor Day, an annual celebration held by the hospital. Samantha hopes to raise money and awareness for the work done at St. Jude and to give hope to kids in situations just like her own.

Beyond bicycling, she also rock climbs and skis. She plans to become a doctor.

Everyone listened intently, and Samantha moved us with her inspirational, positive attitude.

I’d like to say I took detailed notes, but I was too busy thinking of ways we could help this amazing young woman. So I emailed her and asked if she’d write down her comments from the meeting. Rather than use my own words, I’ll let her eloquence and charisma speak:

“Hey, my name is Samantha Gilley and I am 17 years old. Before I tell you about our ride, I want to give you a little of my history. I was born with cancer in both of my eyes, and now despite many treatments and surgeries I am now completely blind. The cancer was tough enough, but the treatments have left many side effects including partial hearing loss, but that doesn’t stop me. I have had cancer all of nine times between the ages of six weeks and seven years old, and I have had countless operations to save my life, and reconstruct my face.

“My favorite thing to do is ride tandem bikes. I love feeling the wind in my face and the thrill of speeding down a hill after just making a hard climb up to the top. Did I mention I am a St. Jude patient? This whole idea for a ride to Memphis started about a year ago, when my uncle and I were riding around town. He thought I was joking, but I really wasn’t. Once he finally saw that I wasn’t kidding, he thought it was a great idea. So he has really stepped in and started to take this whole thing under his wing.

“Our plan is to ride a tandem bike from Chattanooga to Memphis this October to the St. Jude Survivors Weekend and raise money for St. Jude along the way. I want to give back to them in return for them saving my life more than once. I want other kids to have a chance at life as well. If you ask me, no child should have their life cut short because of something like cancer. Trust me, I know, mine almost was.”

The 3-State was her official kick-off training ride. As of this writing, she and Barry planned to do most of the metric route.

In late April, the board of the Chattanooga Bicycle Club voted the funds to purchase a new Cannondale tandem for Samantha to replace the loaner she’d been riding.

You’ll be hearing lots more about Samantha in the coming months as she prepares for her epic ride—an adventure I’m guessing that few of us would attempt. We’ll be telling you—and asking you—about ways you can help. As starters, Samantha needs an RV to accompany her and Barry along the route and be her “home on wheels” and pilots to take over on route segments and to help on training rides. If you want more information on Samantha and the ride, she has an informative website: www.samsride.org.

I’ll close with the words Samantha uses to close her emails:

“Life shouldn’t be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body. But rather, to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly shouting.... ‘Wow! What a ride!’”

See you next month,

Jim Johnson