Biking his way through cancer

One FreeWheel biker is in the ride once again, five years after his third battle with cancer.

SULPHUR — While his friends were biking across Paris, Tulsa native Bill Glass was battling cancer for the third time.

Glass, a 31-year competitive bicyclist, was diagnosed with stage-four throat cancer in June 2003. But he was familiar with hearing that diagnosis. Glass already beat melanoma on the back of his ankle and a cancerous basal cell under his lower lip.

"Cancer's not a death sentence," Glass said. "I never really went through the 'Why me?' I said, 'I have it, let's fix it and get back on the bike.' "

But Glass didn't get to again pedal until September. After his second week of chemotherapy and radiation, he couldn't get enough calories to ride.

"I lost 40 pounds," Glass said. "It hurt to put anything in my mouth. It was like a big canker sore all over my mouth."

Five years later, he's hitting the freewheel pavement again.

Glass is one of several hundred participants in FreeWheel, a cross-state bicycle ride marking its 30th anniversary this year.

After a week out of the hospital in 2003, Glass was back on his bike.

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I couldn't walk to the mailbox and back without being completely wiped out," Glass said. "I wanted to get on a bike as fast as I could."

Glass, 55, said his doctor didn't want him to exercise while he was coming off the Morphine used to ease his mouth and throat pain, but he was getting his balance back on a recumbent Tricycle anyway.

"I was always giving my doctor a hard time because I was trying to do more exercise than she thought I should," Glass said.

Four months after his treatment, Glass set out with two friends on his first 100-mile trek since his diagnosis, despite the doctor's orders. If cancer couldn't stop him, the January weather wouldn't either.

"I did a 100-mile tour in January — it was 13 degrees when we started — to prove to myself I could be well again," Glass said. "We were so happy when it warmed up to 30 and our water bottles unfroze."

Over the last five years, Glass has concentrated on getting himself back to where he used to be. Glass bikes 60 to 80 miles a day.

"It slowed me down for a while," he said. "I'm still only about 95 percent back to where I used to be. I don't think I'll ever be back where I was, but we won't blame that on age."

Ninety five percent or 100 percent, Glass made sure he made it back this year to FreeWheel, in which he participated during the first five years until he moved out of state.

Glass said he's learned to appreciate bicycling, and FreeWheel, more since his fight with cancer. He said he took his time on Sunday's winding 66-mile trek from Marietta to Sulphur.

"You get in when you get in," Glass said. "My goal is not to hurry. This is purely for enjoyment. There's no pressure."

Bicyclists will ride 64 miles from Sulphur to Seminole on Monday.

source Tulsa World

Below, Bill Glass, 55, poses with his bicycle at the end of the first day of Oklahoma FreeWheel. Glass has beaten cancer three times and bikes 60 to 80 miles a day. Aram Boghosian/Tulsa World