This year I ride for my father, Tom Zierk. Tom passed away in November, 2024 after a year-long battle with renal cell carcinoma. It is impossible to describe my father in a profile box like this, though Bill Berman, one of his closest friends, summed him up well...One part James Dean, one part Jimmy Buffet, one part Jack Kerouac, one part Dumbledor and one part Johnnie Knoxville. 100% authentic, 100% one of a kind, Thomas Willard Zierk. I grew up watching my father ride the PMC, and now I ride for him.

Since its founding in 1980, PMC riders like me have raised more than $1 billion for lifesaving cancer research, treatment and patient care at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, one of the country's top cancer care hospitals and where my father received his treatment. 100 percent of every dollar I raise goes directly to Dana-Farber, meaning that your donation has a real impact! Please donate to my PMC fundraising and help me reach my fundraising goal.

I am also riding on team Opa! Opa!!! For my close friend and second mother, Stacy Valhouli, a stage 4 Hodgkins Lymphoma Survivor. Over the past 3 years, team Opa! Opa!!! has raised nearly 200,000 dollars, with a goal to raise 40,000 dollars this year. Please help us reach our goal!

The PMC is more than a fundraiser. It’s a lifeline. To every patient, every survivor, every grieving family, and to our own family. The PMC community, Dana-Farber, and each of you have helped carry us through some of the hardest days of our lives. And now we ride in celebration, in gratitude, and with renewed urgency.