About 70 miles into the Freeborn County American Cancer Society Bike-A-thon Saturday, when the wind was at its worst, Dr. Irving Lerner and the group he was riding with overtook a 12-year-old youngster along the route.

“He asked, ‘Can I ride with you?'” Lerner recalled.

Talking with the boy, the Twin Cities-area doctor asked him why he was riding.

“Because I lost two relatives to cancer,” the boy, whom Lerner only knew as Jordan, said.

“That’s why I do it,” Lerner said of riding in the Bike-A-thon.

Lerner was part of the first Bike-A-thon, and was part of the 30th annual Bike-A-thon this weekend, as well as every one in between. Over the first 29 years, Lerner himself raised $405,881 of the total $1,161,810 brought in by the event. This year’s total isn’t in yet.

Lerner said he never considers doing anything else for the first weekend in May. “When my kids were old enough to ride, they were included,” he said. This year, three generations of the family rode: his wife, Gwen; their daughter Joanne and her husband Chris Messerly; and their children, Anna, Ben and Jack. Other years, the couple’s son has ridden, and one year, Lerner’s brother came from Ohio to ride.

For the first 25 years, Lerner always rode with his close friend, Bob Vangene, also of the Twin Cities area. Vangene returned this year to ride all 100 miles with his friend.

Lerner originally got involved with the Bike-A-thon through his acquaintance with Lorrayne Aysta of Albert Lea. Both were serving on the American Cancer Society’s division board and had heard about a similar bike event elsewhere when Aysta proposed doing one in Albert Lea.

“It sounded good,” Lerner recalled. “None of us knew if we could ride 100 miles. But we just had so much fun, it became tradition.”

Lerner sends out 170 letters each year to people who pledge money to the American Cancer Society if he rides. “This has been my communication with people every year,” he said. “I get responses from widows and widowers of patients. There’s a mother of a young man I cared for who sends a check for $500 every year.”

Lerner has said this will be the last year he will solicit pledges for the Bike-A-thon. “I’m apprehensive about losing those contacts,” he said.

As a doctor treating cancer patients for the last 35 years, he has seen big strides in cancer research and knows the money he’s raised has helped, especially in the fact that the American Cancer Society is “the organization that deals with the human issues of cancer,” he said. “With the education and services it provides, that’s what makes it all worthwhile.”

Lerner said he’s seen a handful of his sickest patients &045; in particular one woman who was 34 years old and another in her 40s &045; make the ride as personal challenges to themselves. “Both did the ride, but didn’t survive the cancer. Now one’s family comes down and does the ride each year.”

Bike-a-thon volunteers gathered for a 30th anniversary celebration Saturday evening at the Elks Lodge. They shared many stories of people who made the ride over the years, like Helen Wilhelm, who just recently died; or Art Throlson, who in 1976, at age 76, rode the route and made the Associated Press wire as the “Spirit of ’76.” That year the ride was two 50-mile loops, and Lerner rode the loop three times on a dare.

Fred Moran has ridden for all but one year of the 30. The year he wasn’t able to, his daughter went for him. “I was so proud of her,” he said.

“We should have started taking notes 30 years ago, if we’d known it was going to go 30 years,” Aysta said.

Don Nolander, who is retiring as ride co-chairman, thanked the dedicated volunteers.

“It’s been 30 years of a really fun time,” he said.

Herb Neale, who co-chaired the event with Nolander, said he also enjoyed the last 30 years. He asked his wife, Caroline, to stand up. It was four years ago Saturday that she received a stem-cell transplant for her cancer.

“My wife is living proof of what cancer research can do,” he said.

Lerner said as “an outsider looking in, this community has a lot to be proud of. The Albert Lea Bike-A-thon is so special because of the people of Albert Lea.”