Photo credit: Saskia Martin
One More City is an annual cycling campaign in October (Breast Cancer Awareness Month) with a simple ethos: the journey is never over; we are always progressing towards the next city, there are always more kilometres to do, more climbs to conquer and more challenges to face. This is akin to the reality of anyone living with cancer, especially secondary cancer, for whom the challenge is never over; there are always more treatments to endure, more scans to face, more side effects to manage.
The campaign is focused on raising awareness of secondary breast cancer, and funding innovative research into this disease which killed nearly 12,000 women in 2016 in the UK alone.
It was founded by Christine O’Connell, a keen cyclist who was diagnosed with Stage 4 Breast Cancer in 2018. For more about Christine, please see ‘About Us.’
To date One More City has raised nearly £400,000 in the UK, allowing us to fund three PhD students. Our first, Kasté Jurgaityté, is pursuing a Ph.D in the Breast Cancer Resistance Lab at Imperial College London, investigating a new drug for secondary breast cancer. Our second PhD student, Hwei Minn Khoo, started in October 2023. Her position is a collaboration between The Institute of Cancer Research and Imperial College London. The aim is to create and develop new treatment options for secondary breast cancer patients, by bringing together the best resources and innovative research methods of two of the UK’s leading cancer research centres. As of Novmeber 2023 we have raised enough money for our third PhD student who will be recruited in 2024 at the ICR. Additionally, we are 30k in to the next fundraising target which is for a Clinical PhD Fellowship at the ICR.
One More City successfully expanded to San Francisco in 2022. The third ride is scheduled for October 2024, raising funds for UCSF. 100 riders signed up in 2023, raising over $25,000 for secondary breast cancer research at the University of California San Francisco.
We have now set up a second partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) in New York, and including San Francisco, seven RCC US Chapters will host one day rides on the 19th of October. Riders may support either UCSF or MSK.
London will also host a one day ride, and we are in discussions with other European chapters, as well as rides in Melbourne, Sydney, and the Philippines. We are looking to establish a relationship with Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Australia.
2024
Our 2024 ride runs from the 26th-29th September where we will ride from Venice to Rome. If you fancy joining us for part of the ride, message us on Instagram for more information.