Welcome to my site where I attempt to make a difference for cancer patients throughout the world by generating financial donations to the
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (
DFCI) in Boston, Massachusetts through the
Pan-Massachusetts Challenge (
PMC)/Jimmy Fund. The
PMC is now an 180 mile (two day) cycling event where cyclists are sponsored by individuals/companies in order to raise the money needed to be qualified to ride in the event ($6,000) and to fight cancer through research and for cancer care. It used to be 192 miles until this year. I am one of those cyclists. Each sponsor's donation goes directly to the
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (
DFCI) in Boston, Massachusetts via the
Jimmy Fund, the fund raising arm of the
DFCI. The
Jimmy Fund was established in 1949. The
PMC was established in 1980 and has since raised over half of the
total money the
Jimmy Fund has raised in donations since it's inception or a total sum of $1,125,000,000.00, as of January 1, 2026. It is the largest sum of money ever contributed to a charity by an athletic fund raising event anywhere in the world. I got involved in 2007. By the end of my nineteenth year, December 31, 2025, I had moved a total of $543,356.00 in donations. Many donations come from the same individuals who give to my cancer project year after year. But there are many new contributors every year as well. In 2026, my goal is to raise over $40,000.00 as soon as I can and then add to that total. I have never reached that mark. The closest I came was the 2021 season where I was able to raise $37,950.00. Last years tally was exactly $35,000.00. One hundred percent of every donation I receive goes to cancer research; not a penny goes to administrative costs. Thank you all for your, generosity, trust and support!
The digital image above was a selfie that I took of myself, left, and
Paul "Hez" Haseltine on August 2, 2025, the first leg/day of the last year's
Pan-Mass.Challenge cycling event from Sturbridge, Massachusetts to the
Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Bourne, Massachusetts. A distance of 110 miles. We were probably thirty miles into the ride on our bikes but were taking a break before we continued on.
Hez first started riding in this event in 2006. He contacted me when he got home, excited about the ride, what it meant and how well it was run. I was cycling about 8,000 miles a year at the time to stay in good shape and to compete in minor races. So his approach intrigued me. He invited me to ride in the event the following year. I had wanted to do something to help cancer research as too many of my customers had passed from the disease ending with
Chet Potyrala (MA), one of my favorite fishing patrons and the last straw as far as me being uninvolved. The event would satisfy my desire to do something to curb cancer and to also enjoy an athletic event close to my heart.
The 2007 ride with Hez blew me away. I was hooked. Not so much because of the ride but mostly because it was an extremely well organized way to raise money for cancer research, to fund a very reputable institution close to home. The fundraising was the main thing to me. The way they set it up made it so much easier to generate donations. I consider the ride a gift for all the time and money spent fundraising. It was a great idea and a special event. We rode the event together for many years, taking a break during the first year of Covid, another break for my son's wedding and two years of no riding, for me, after I got into a serious cycling accident on June 5, 2023. I ended up in the hospital for nearly a month after breaking nine vertebrae, breaking my scapula in five places, puncturing both lungs and breaking eight ribs, plus. Last season was the first time I had ridden the event in two years. The fundraising never stopped even though I couldn't walk or could barely walk for the whole of 2023. This will be my twentieth year involved in the event. Last year was the first year they allowed a certain class of pedal-assist eBikes (class 1 pedal-assist only). Hez used one in the event last year. He had been having some health issues and could not have completed the ride without one, since the condition kept him from training. Me, on the other hand, had done a significant amount of walking, running, swimming with very little riding. So I was very much out of riding shape but in pretty good physical shape. In order to be able to ride in the event, I had to promise my wife, Deb, that I would not draft off other riders, not race the event (as I had done in the earlier years) and stay away from the other riders as much as I could while maintaining a slower, more careful, pace. This I did. And it turned out fine. I finished, albeit, barely making it to the end of both legs.
The thing I like most about the PMC ride is meeting everyone, the like minded wonderful individuals who make this such a great event. When you get to know these people you soon realize this event's worth and how much it means to the people you are riding with and those you are riding for. Honestly, in cemented my resolve to keep doing it year after year.
I got more serious about the event when Hez was found to have prostate cancer a couple of years after we started doing it together. Hez was also the one who suggested that I be part of the P4K team. He thought my donation money would be better spent funneling it directly to research and that this was, in his opinion, the preeminent team to belong to. Until joining P4K, the money I raised went into the general fund. Again, I did the research and decided to give it a try. Now I too feel that I get more bang for the buck by riding and pooling donation money with the P4K team. I explain more about what the P4K money does in the paragraphs below. I guess to me, Hez is the most important cog in the wheel of my involvement. I've come to believe that he has the most common sense of anyone who I have had the pleasure to know. He's a good friend. My best friend.
The reasons to donate to my team are many. But there are a few salient reasons to continue to do so.
First, the DFCI is good at what they do, one of the top five cancer research & care facilities in the country every year.
Second, one hundred percent of your donation goes right to the source, the DFCI. The cost of running the PMC (about $5 million) is underwritten by businesses around Boston. So every rider raised penny goes right to the general fund or an specific area of oncology of your choice. In my case your donation money goes to a specific group of researchers who are involved in genetic profiling.
As mentioned above, I belong to a team called Precision for Kids (P4K), the name of the team derived from the type of "new age" cancer research called precision cancer medicine. This will be the sixth or seventh year I have belonged to this team. I decided to go with the Precision for Kids team because they fund research with Dr. Katherine Janeway, a cancer survivor herself, who divides her time between working at DFCI and Boston Children's Hospital in genetic profiling. Her goal is to find the specific gene in the DNA sequence of the person with the cancer, use a targeted drug that will "switch off" the gene (they haven't yet learned how to replace the gene) causing the cancer and, thus, bypass the traditional use of chemotherapy and radiation while curing the patient. She has already had great success in real time with several children at the time of this writing. This made me want to direct my donor's money in her direction. Nine years ago her research wasn't being funded at all! Once her methods are perfected, the techniques will spread to all other research teams their techniques applied to all types of cancers. I have been very excited about the prospects of her team's work and the many successes her team has had.
Third, the DFCI is in our back yard.
Fourth, the innovative work they do spills into other facilities and other areas of medicine making it better for everyone in the U.S. and around the world.
Fifth, you can deduct your donation when filing your tax returns.
Sixth, the more money the DFCI receives, the better able they are to hire the best people (researchers/doctors) to do the job. This will continue to make them the best to support.
Seventh, individuals I know are now cancer free because of the good work at the DFCI. In fact, my involvement alone has saved thirteen of my friends lives in the short time that "I" have been involved.
Thank you all so much for supporting me in this wonderful event. It's the event of a life saved for many of those people with the disease. And cancer won't go away unless someone gets involved. I am just one of the many who believe in this event. And, last year, this one cycling event raised over $78,000,000.00.
The event has many rides. Mine, the longest of the few available. Last year was the last year that the Sturbridge to Provencetown, Massachusetts was run. That ride was the orginal single route started in 1980. After that year, when the event became more established, they added a few more routes with different values and shorter ride distances. This year the longest route will start at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. I suspect the ride will go off at 5:30 AM, like it usually does. The ride will end where it had traditionally ended, in Mass. Maritime Academy, Bourne, Massacusetts. The ride will be one hundred miles total or ten miles shorter. We will also lose 800 vertical feet of climbing - which I will miss but my legs probably with not! The next leg, the next day, will be the same route I have taken every year that I have ridden the event or about 80 miles long. The first twenty-three miles of the first day will be on roads I have never ridden a bike on or maybe even been on before.
I am seventy-four years old, a life long endurance athlete and an avid deep sea party boat fisherman/captain/owner and President/General Manager/owner of my family's restaurant business in Perkins Cove (Barnacle Billy's, Inc.) Ogunquit, Maine.
The amount of money you donate is not important to me. It all adds up, big donations or small. But the number of donors is very important indeed. Every bit of money will help cancer victims in some way. If you, as a donor, want to make your contribution anonymous, write this as a note with your check and it will be so. Otherwise, donors and donations will be recognized and appear below. This list will be edited as soon as I am able with your contribution added in order of the date I receive the check or donation confirmation. Thank you in advance.
pan-massachusetts challenge website: www.pmc.org
Tradition
 |
Almost every year at the start of the first leg of the first day, Steve LaPlante and David Miller meet us before 5:00 AM as we are getting ready in the dark to start the ride. Steve drives from Connecticut and Dave is a little closer, near Leicester, Massachusetts. Every year at the start of the event, we have a group picture taken. Sometimes there are others included. But, almost always, Steve and Dave are there. Last year was no different. Both Steve and Dave met Hez and I as we were walking out of the hotel room door on August 2nd, last year, with water bottles in hand. We found someone to take our picture. I gave that someone my iPhone 16 pro cell phone and the picture was taken. The shot appears above. From left to right is Steve LaPlante, yours truly, Dave Miller and, last but not least, Hez. More than any year before, we took our time getting started. Hez was getting used to the eBike that he borrowed. I was feeling myself out since it was the first time I had been on a bike, officially, since June 5, 2023. I had spent some time inside on the trainer I have at home. I can tell you that it's not the same. And I can also tell you that I miss riding outside dearly. I dream about it. Regardless, we both rode out to the road as Dave and Steve urged us on. Tradition, as Dave always says. Dave and Steve are two of my very best anglers who sail with me on the Bunny Clark.
A digital image of me,
Tim Tower, taken at 10:00 AM, August 6, 2016, fifteen miles from the finish of the first leg of the
PMC ride from the Sturbridge to Provincetown route. This leg stopped at
Mass Maritime Academy where we would stay over night in the dorms there before the start of the next day. At the time the shot was taken, the photographer was lying prone on the right hand side of the road. I was the second rider to pass him. But I lost my place when I stopped to fill water bottles at the next water stop. As is customary on the first day, I am wearing the full
2016 PMC kit with matching socks.
© PMC Photography
Tim Tower as seen during the running leg of the West Kennebunk Fire Company Triathlon on Aug 26, 2006.
© EJS Photography
Tim Tower as seen during swim/bike transition during the West Kennebunk Fire Company Triathlon on Aug 26, 2006. After the swim, the bike is taken (running) with the shoes already clipped in. In this image, Tim has already mounted the bike (which is moving at 10 mph), the right foot is in and he is in the process of getting the left foot in the shoe.
© EJS Photography
A shot of me (Tim Tower) in transition after the ocean swimming leg of West Kennebunk Fireman Triathlon sprint (the swim was a third of a mile) on August 26, 2007.
© Capstone Photography (www.capstonephoto.com)
A digital image taken of Teagan Carver, Andy Carver's daughter, and I at Andy's house on August 7, 2021 during the ride. Andy's house is right on the route from Sturbridge to Bourne, Massachusetts. He is one of the main talents of the P4K team and very generous with his time in that regard. There were a number of the team individuals who stopped at the same time. Teagan is modeling the 2021 Bunny Clark/PMC t-shirt. I design a new shirt for every PMC season. The shirt is always a different color, the design is unique and they are all cotton, with some exceptions.
© Tim Tower Photograph
Paul "Hez" Haseltine during the 2015 PMC. A shot taken on the ride during the second day on the way to Provincetown, Massachusetts. At the time, Hez had done the event for eleven years, one more year than I had. But we have ridden together in the PMC since 2007, a year after he had ridden in the event without me for the first time. We have taken part in this event together ever since.
© PMC Image
At the finish, on the last day, at the Provincetown Inn, the PMC puts on a lunch under a huge tent adjacent to the Inn. On August 5, 2018 at 1:00 PM, I ran into Billy Starr, the founder and CEO of the PMC. I asked Billy if I could have a "selfie" of he and I, which he obliged (below). I am the one in the black PMC cap and sunglasses. It has been a great honor to know the man.
© Tim Tower Image
A week after the 2016 PMC, Jonathan Cartwright (left) & I find ourselves riding together again. At this point I still haven't taken the racing numbers off my bike yet! This shot was taken in Kennebunk by Daniel Braun.
© Daniel Braun Image
Picture taken of me, Tim Tower, on the bike leg of the West Kennebunk Fireman (Olympic length) Triathlon on June 17, 2007.
© Capstone Photography (www.capstonephoto.com)
One of my best friends and fellow PMC rider, Paul Haseltine (left) and myself at Sturbridge, Massachusetts during dinner on the eve of the 2007 PMC ride, Friday, August 3, 2007, my introduction to the PMC. My first time at the event! Notice the Fish Tunes T-shirt - well before it was publically known that The Wildlife Refugees would produce such an astounding collection of original music about fishing.
© PMC Photo
In this digital image I am wearing the full kit of the Maine Coast Cycling Club, an organization that I am very happy to be a part of. Probably the nicest crew that I have ever cycled with. One of the rides leaves every Sunday from Kennebunkport at 8:00 AM (9:00 AM in the winter) and goes for 25 to 50 miles, depending on the on the group you are in. Every Sunday morning you will find me with the MC3 crew. Rides average 20 to 21 mph in the faster groups and 17 mph in the slowest group. No one that gets dropped is ever left behind. And I always wear this kit proudly on the second day of the PMC.
© Tim Tower Photo
A shot taken at 4:30 AM, August 1, 2009 at the Sturbridge, Massachusetts starting line putting the bikes in position before the beginning of the ride. The digital image shows me (Tim Tower) on the right and my best friend and cycling mate, Paul Hesaltine, on the left. At this time I never would have thought that six hours later I would be lying on the ground unconscious from a bike crash.
© PMC Photo
Sitting on a hospital gurney in the emergency room at Tobey Hospital in Wareham, Massachusetts after I tapped the wheel of the rider ahead of me and went down on the pavement. The crash happened ten miles from the finish of the first day at the 2009 PMC while sitting in, riding with a group of fifteen cyclists. The quick response of the emergency crew had an EMT standing over me within a minute, the ambulance another five minutes. I was rendered unconscious during the crash but the CAT scan results at Tobey came out negative. Such are the dangers when riding with others on a bicycle. The crash was totally my fault but, except for a slightly separated shoulder and a cut over my eye (that required a few stitches), all my injuries were in the "road rash" category.
© Paul Haseltine Photo
Training for the PMC every Sunday with the Maine Coast Cycling Club. This shot was taken on July 23, 2017.
© Tim Tower Photo
On the last day I finished ahead of my cycling mates, Jonathan Cartwright and Daniel Braun. However, this gave me an opportunity to take a picture of them "high fiving" just after the finish line in Provincetown, Massachusetts on August 6, 2017. Daniel is the cyclist on the left.
© Tim Tower Photo
The shot below was taken by Andy Carver, a selfie of sorts showing Andy in the foreground. To his right is yours truly, just to the left of another cyclist. We are no more than seven miles out from the start line on August 4, 2018. The first day everyone wears the PMC kit of that year. Every year the PMC kits are different. Andy was a professional football player (goalie) in England before moving to the United States and raising a family here. He owns a commercial painting company in Boston. A superb athlete, Andy is always a lot of fun to ride with and certainly a challenge on a bike.
© Andy Carver Photo
A picture taken of Steve LaPlante and I before the start of 2011 Pan-Mass Challenge at 4:45 AM in Sturbridge, MA. Steve is wearing the 2011 Bunny Clark/PMC t-shirt. I am wearing the 2011 PMC full kit.
© Paul Haseltine Photo
A digital image of Lance Armstrong at 5:30 AM at the start of the 2011 Pan-Mass Challenge in Sturbridge, MA on August 7, 2011. This was the one and only time that Lance did this ride. I caught up with him at the 13 mile mark and ended up riding with him for almost 30 miles. At one point during the ride he held my wheel as we left the group he was riding with (Senator John Kerry's group). Although I tried talking with Lance during the ride, he did not talk to me.
© Tim Tower Photo
A digital image of U. S. Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) at 5:30 AM at the start of the 2011 Pan-Mass Challenge in Sturbridge, MA on August 7, 2011. I rode with Senator Brown for a while and talked with him before leaving him in order to catch up with the Lance Armstrong/Senator Kerry group. I found him to be a very receptive down to earth guy. Very unpretentious and a delight to talk with.
© Tim Tower Photo
A digital image of U. S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA) at 11:00 AM during the end of the first day ride in the 2012 Pan-Mass Challenge on August 4, 2012. We were only a quarter of a mile (the 112 mile mark) from the finish of the first day ride from Sturbridge, MA to Bourne, MA (Mass. Maritime Academy). Senator Kerry is the rider with the black/white shorts and orange Cervélo bike. Surrounding him were the Secret Service contingent who he rode with. I rode for 70 miles with Senator Kerry's group that day. Senator Kerry rode the PMC for many years until he became Secretary of State in 2013 and was unable to participate in the ride that year.
© Tim Tower Photo
Every Saturday start of the PMC every year, good friends and regular anglers of my boat, the F/V Bunny Clark, drive to Sturbridge, Massachusetts to arrive at 4:30 AM to see Hez and I off and wish us good luck on the first leg of the PMC ride. We always try to get a digital image of the four of us. This shot was taken on August 3, 2019 at 5:00 AM. From left to right are yours truly, Dave Miller (MA), Steve LaPlante (CT) and Hez.
© Tim Tower Photo
I took the digital image below on August 3, 2019, the first riding day of the Pan-Mass. Challenge. I was riding with some of the team members best suited for my speed and way of riding the bike. The first day requirement on the ride is that every participant/rider has to wear the PMC's kit for that season. The riders who I enjoy riding with form a "train" where one leads and the other riders stay closely behind, drafting each other. It's a means of covering more ground, more quickly with less effort than if you did it alone. I took a few seconds to take a few pictures of the riders leading.
© Tim Tower Photo
On the second day, all the riders wear their club kits, team kits or kits they enjoy wearing on every day rides. The shot below shows me moving to the back after leading our group, all wearing the P4K team colors. This digital image was taken about ten miles from our destination on the Cape, Provincetown, Massachusetts. In the picture, I'm the closest one to the camera.
© Andy Carver Photo
A digital image of me out of the saddle during the second day of the ride, Sunday, August 4, 2019.
© PMC Photo
A digital image of me (left), Billy Starr (middle - the founder of the PMC, it's president & CEO) & Mike Parent (founder of the P4K team) taken on Sunday, August 4, 2019.
© Tim Tower Photo
I took this digital image on Sunday, August 4, 2019 as we were going down "the chute" in the last few yards before the finish of the 2019 PMC in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The picture shows P4K team members, Katie & Fred Stallings (sister & brother) holding hands in victory of another safe, enjoyable end to 2019's PMC ride.
© Tim Tower Photo
In order to make a donation, make a check out to Pan-Massachusetts Challenge/Jimmy Fund and send it to me, Tim Tower (PMC), at P.O. Box 837, Ogunquit, Maine 03907. Or you can make a donation electronically with your credit card by going to my profile page on the PMC site and click on the "Donate to My Ride" blue button. Follow the instructions from there. For more information,
contact Tim:
207-646-2214
sowhake@gmail.com
| DATE of CHECK |
DONOR |
ORGANIZATION |
STATE |
DONATION |
| 1.) 01-01-26 |
Meg Tower |
"For all you do, Tim." |
ME |
$2000 |
| 2.) 01-02-26 |
Peter Bradley |
Personal - "eGift" |
CA |
$100 |
| 3.) 01-02-26 |
Dennis Pietro |
Personal - "eGift" |
NH |
$500 |
| 4.) 01-06-26 |
Bill Devon |
Personal - "In fond Memory of Kathy Devon" |
VT |
$50 |
| 1-6-26 |
>>>>>>> |
Total to Date |
>>>>>>> |
$2,650 |
