Great Cycle Challenge USA has one goal…to fight kids’ cancer!

Why? Because cancer remains the most common cause of death by disease among children in the United States. One in five children diagnosed with cancer in the U.S. will not survive, and for the ones who do, the battle is never over.

All funds raised go to support the work of Children’s Cancer Research Fund to develop treatments and cures for childhood cancer. And we won’t stop until all kids are free from cancer!

Your support through Great Cycle Challenge USA allows us to continue our work to fight kids’ cancer and give kids like Harriet and Cash the brighter futures that they deserve.

Together, we can end childhood cancer as we know it. 

The Impact You Make 

The road to better treatment options and cures always starts with riders and fundraisers like you.  About 1 in 285 children will develop cancer before the age of 20. When you ride for Great Cycle Challenge, you are supporting the brightest minds whose ideas are making the greatest impact for kids with cancer. 

We fund research at institutions nationwide, focusing on projects that allow researchers to prove their idea, then reach for even larger grants. Federal funding sources often don’t fund projects until much later in the process. In fact, more than half of all pediatric cancer research funding comes from foundations like CCRF. Because of you, we can “unstick” these great ideas by closing that funding gap. 

Below are just a few examples of research projects that have been made possible because of dedicated fundraisers like you. 

The progress you’ve made possible

You created a vaccine that can defeat brain tumors.

You made it possible for researchers to create an FDA-approved vaccine that can “turn off” a protein that shields brain tumors form a child’s immune system. This potentially lifesaving vaccine is currently in clinical trial. If successful, it would eliminate the need for harsher treatments like chemotherapy and radiation, and vastly improve survival rates for kids with brain tumors 

You helped researchers discover 16 new targets to kill osteosarcoma in record time.  

Osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer, has been around since the dinosaurs. But with concentrated effort, your fundraising supercharged the field of osteosarcoma research and helped scientists discover 16 new genetic targets in just five years. Now that these targets are identified, researchers have begun to test existing drugs that can hit these targets and destroy osteosarcoma. One of these drugs is in clinical trial right now, and it aims to improve survival rates of kids with osteosarcoma who have relapsed.

You are pushing a lifesaving treatment for rare leukemia across the finish line. 

For a rare form of acute myeloid leukemia, the survival rate is dismal - just 8-14%. Even if chemotherapy, stem cell transplant or blood or marrow transplant work initially, children with this type of leukemia are at extremely high risk of relapse. But because of you, a renowned researcher will have the funds to take his lifesaving idea from the lab to a clinical trial – a trial that could give a future to kids who don’t know if they’ll get to celebrate their next birthday.

While many organizations fund research at just one hospital or university, CCRF has funded more than 180 researchers at 30 different research institutions. Learn more about the important work GCC riders have made possible

Where We've Funded Research

Money raised by Great Cycle Challenge riders has been granted to the following hospitals and research centers. Funding decisions are made by a research advisory council reviewing applications and selecting which projects have the potential to make the greatest impact.