Inspired to ride against cancer, they never stopped

Claire Bollinger ’16 MS, ’17 PhD began graduate school in 2011. 

“I saw all these green arrows; they were everywhere,” she says. “I asked around and learned they were Pelotonia arrows. It was too late to ride that year, but I volunteered and started riding the next year. And I’m still riding.”

Tyler Cole ’13 learned more about Pelotonia while working in the lab of a James cancer researcher during his sophomore year. 

“It wasn’t ‘if you’d participate,’ but ‘how will you become involved in Pelotonia,’” he says. “Once I rode that first year, I was hooked and I kept riding.”

Pelotonia is the annual cycling, hiking and running event that has raised more than $339 million for research at Ohio State’s Comprehensive Cancer Center–James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute. And for some participants, their Pelotonia journey begins as Ohio State students—about 125 rode for Team Buckeye in 2025, for instance. 

“My Pelotonia community was my first community here at Ohio State,” Bollinger says. “It’s given me something to keep my body moving and is a continued connection to Ohio State and the people I’m involved with in Pelotonia.”

Cole is an ICU nurse in Central Ohio; Bollinger is an assistant professor-clinical in Ohio State’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. Like so many Pelotonia participants, their families have faced cancer.

Cole’s maternal grandfather, Garland Lanier, died from cancer in 2001, and his maternal grandmother, Betty Lanier, passed in 2010 from cancer. 

“Pelotonia has brought my family even closer together,” Cole says. “My uncle wrote me a thank you letter after a ride. He thanked me for riding every year. That’s what Pelotonia is all about and why I ride.”

Every year, Cole rides with the same group he met and became friends with over the years. “A couple years ago, one of the guys was having a tough time,” Cole says. “He’d lost his mother to cancer and was struggling. We took turns pulling him, and we all crossed the finish line together. I’ll never forget it.”

Both of Bollinger’s parents were diagnosed with cancer (her mother was treated at The James) and ultimately lost their lives. “Pelotonia is a way to honor both of them,” she says.

A couple years ago, Bollinger rode with one of her former students. “His grandmother was battling breast cancer, but she was doing really well, so it was uplifting and a reminder that so many people now have positive outcomes in their cancer journeys. It’s all because of research.”