Toss a quarter in the air. It comes up heads.

Do it again. Heads.

What are the chances of that? Twenty-five per cent. Same as the one-in-four odds Canadians face that they will die of cancer. Forty per cent (that’s two-in-five) will develop cancer in their lifetime.

For Valter Viola, 49, those numbers alone are stark. He wanted to do something.

Learning that the researchers at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre are working hard to find a cure, Viola decided to work harder, too.

That’s why Viola rode the 200-plus km course of the Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer on a rowbike. Think of a rowing machine mounted on two wheels. Average speed: about 15 km per hour.

Viola did manage to get over 40 km per hour at times during the six-and-a-half hour ride from Toronto to Hamilton on Saturday. He’ll do the return trip on Sunday.

“The rolling hills are the ones that are killing me. They just never seem to end. My fingers are killing me,” Viola said. “But it’s okay. I feel great. I’ve registered for next year already. I’m kicking myself for not doing it earlier.”

Viola was inspired by the sheer number of riders — 5,020 this year — and particularly those with yellow flags on their bicycles. They’re cancer survivors.

He spoke to the Star on Saturday before wolfing down a turkey sandwich at one of the rest stops. He was about 40 km from the overnight camp site at Mohawk College in Hamilton.

“The whole goal is to raise money,” he said. “I figured if I worked a little harder and had to train a little harder and differently, then people would open their wallets a bit more. And they did.”

Viola raised $9,000 from more than 60 donors, including his son, 14, and daughter, 12. His http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKIN2qIsr-o&feature=player_detailpage video helped.

This year’s two-day ride raised a record $19.1 million, organizers said. That’s $1 million higher than last year’s total.

“We were overjoyed and surprised. We’re just so grateful for the support,” Paul Alofs, president and CEO of the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation, said in an interview.

The physical ride, which offers six different routes from Toronto and Niagara Falls with an overnight stop in Hamilton, combined with the $2,500 minimum fundraising requirement, “give people a real sense of accomplishment,” Alofs said.

In six years, the event has raised more than $99.3 million for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation and $194.6 million for cancer research, treatment, and care programs across the country.

Viola, who says he’s “not a gym guy,” trained by riding the rowbike to and from work when he could, or around his neighbourhood, even in the winter.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

He did the ride in memory of his father, Licinio Viola, who was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in his late 70s. Though Licinio was fine for a few years, then the cancer spread to his lungs. Surgery was not an option. “He started chemo and that took its toll in the last year,” Viola said.

His father died of a heart attack at age 82 on Family Day 2012. “In the end he didn’t die of cancer, but it really slowed him down,” Viola said. “You hope it never happens to you, but it affects everybody one way or another, directly or indirectly.”