Columnist Susan Snyder: Group works to relay information

Friday, July 29, 2005 | 4:26 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursday and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

WEEKEND EDITION

July 30-31, 2005

Becky Lamph has more training miles to log before joining Lance Armstrong on the Tour of Hope cancer awareness bicycle ride in September.

But the 37-year-old Las Vegas cancer-survivor has the grueling 3,300-mile ride's philosophy firmly in hand.

"Cancer, schmancer. Get on the bike," Lamph said.

On Sept. 29, Lamph will join 23 other riders and seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong in San Diego and embark on a nine-day ride to Washington, D.C., to promote cancer research.

The group is divided into four teams of six. Riding relay style, each team covers 80 to 100 miles every 15 hours, then sleeps in an RV while being shuttled forward to their next spot in the relay.

Lamph will have pedaled about 900 miles by the time the group arrives in the nation's capital Oct. 8.

Ride, eat, sleep, awake, ride some more. Wind, rain, cold, heat -- Lamph and her teammates will face all of it. There will be plenty of cheering crowds as they enter towns along the way. But there also will be plenty of pedaling through dark alone.

And Lamph figures Bristol-Myers Squibb, the cancer pharmaceuticals company that sponsors the tour, planned it that way.

"They want it to be a metaphor for the whole cancer experience," the wife and mother of two said in an interview at her home Thursday. "The hard part of it is adjusting to the fact that at 2 a.m., you're out there on the bike if it's your turn."

Lamph applied to ride the tour after she and her daughter Kelsey joined the thousands who went down to the Strip last fall and see Armstrong and the 2004 Tour of Hope team.

At the time, Lamph was recovering from surgery to remove her cancerous thyroid and was awaiting radiation treatments.

But she wasn't there for herself. She was there for Kelsey, now 8. Kelsey was diagnosed with leukemia when she was 19 months old. The Lamphs' second child, daughter Reese, was just seven weeks old at the time.

Kelsey was put into a clinical trial using a three-drug "cocktail." She went into remission soon afterward, but remained on treatment for two years and two months, Lamph said.

Results of Kelsey's trial released six months ago showed children who followed the test regimen on it relapsed less often. Kelsey, who wears one of Armstrong's yellow "Livestrong" bracelets around her ankle like her mom does, has been off treatments for four years.

"She's good. She's solid," Lamph said.

So is Kelsey's mom. Lamph rises at 5 a.m. for training rides six days a week.

She also is collecting signatures on "promise cards," which mean signers promise to have regular cancer screenings and consider clinical trials if diagnosed. The team delivers the cards to Washington, D.C.

Lamph wants Las Vegas to have the most and challenges local celebrities to set the example and sign up. (Yoo-hoo, Mr. Agassi? Mr. Wynn?)

"I want people to see Las Vegas is an active, caring community," she said.

Though excited, Lamph knows the tour will have its rough and lonely spots. But hope takes many forms. And when the journey seems dark and endless, she knows some solitary cancer survivor will be standing at the side of the road.

Cheering.