In January 2023, life split cleanly into “before” and “after.”
A seizure came without warning. A single violent interruption that led to a diagnosis no family is ever prepared to hear: a brain tumor. Rob was a father of three, a husband, a working man with a passion for his faith & travel & sports. Suddenly, everything narrowed down to scans, specialists, and survival.
By March, he was in brain surgery. By June, he had completed radiation. From July 2023 through May 2024, chemotherapy became the rhythm of his days — infusion cycles, recovery days, the quiet endurance that cancer demands in increments rather than grand gestures.
But Rob made a decision early on that would shape everything that followed.
He was not going to disappear into treatment.
He was not going to let the word *chemotherapy* define the limits of his life.
He wanted to show his children — and anyone watching — that illness could take his cells, but it wasn’t going to take his spirit.
So he got on his bike.
Riding Against the Narrative
There are many misconceptions about chemotherapy. That it always means being bedridden. That life must shrink to hospital rooms and side effects. That strength looks like stillness.
Rob wanted to challenge that narrative in the most visible way he knew how: movement.
While actively undergoing chemotherapy, he rode from London to Paris. Not as a stunt. Not as denial. But as a statement — to fellow patients, to families, to the world — that treatment and living are not mutually exclusive.
The image of a man on a bike, helmet on, legs pumping, rolling toward the Eiffel Tower while chemo drugs moved through his body, carried a message louder than words ever could: There is life here.
He didn’t stop there.
Rob went on to cycle 987 miles around the UK, raising awareness and pushing toward a bold goal — setting a world record for the longest bike ride completed during chemotherapy. Every mile was a conversation starter. Every climb, a quiet rebellion against the idea that cancer patients must retreat from the world.
He wasn’t pretending it was easy. There were hard days. Exhaustion. Dizzy spells. The unpredictable toll treatment takes. But the bike became a symbol of agency, strength and sovereignty — something he could still choose, still control, still *do*.
For his children, he was not just “Dad who is sick.”
He was “Dad who rides across countries”.
The Power Beside Him
Behind every mile, every treatment, every doctor’s visit was love — steady, practical, and fierce.
Shelley.
Wife. Partner. Mother. Anchor.
Rob’s (S)hero.
While Rob fought on the medical frontlines, Shelley held the home front with both hands. She worked. She managed the children’s lives. She carried the invisible weight — appointments, logistics, emotions, the thousand details that keep a family standing when the ground shakes.
But more than that, she believed with Rob.
She didn’t ask him to shrink his dreams to fit his diagnosis. She stood beside his determination, supported his rides, and helped create a home where illness did not erase joy, laughter, or connection.
Their marriage became less about romance in the cinematic sense and more about something deeper: teamwork under fire. The kind of love that shows up at 3 a.m. The kind that says, “We will carry this together.”
Rob may have been the one on the bike, but Shelley and the children were in every mile.
Work, Life, and the Refusal to Pause
By October 2024, Rob returned to work, continuing through June 2025. Not because everything was over — it wasn’t — but because living mattered just as much as healing.
Scans showed progress. Treatment had done its work. By summer 2025 – 4% of the tumor remained.
Four percent.
For some, that number would loom like a shadow. For Rob, it became a new challenge, a final hill still to climb. He traveled to a health retreat in Turkey for a 40-day medically supervised water fast as part of his personal search for ways to support his body’s recovery. He was medically withdrawn after 33 days of water alone. He returned home stable — still working, still present, still loving, still looking for the key to that remaining fraction.
His journey didn’t become a miracle story with a neat ending.
It became something more human: a story of ongoing faith.
Faith in medicine.
Faith in his body’s resilience.
Faith in love.
Faith that even unfinished healing is still progress.
Faith that the Creator is in control.
What Rob’s Rides Really Mean
Rob’s story isn’t about pretending cancer is inspiring.
It’s about what love and faith can fuel when life gets brutally real.
It’s about a father who wants his children to remember not just hospital visits, but faith, love, strength and courage. This is now the benchmark of the family.
It’s about a husband and wife whose partnership deepened under pressure instead of breaking. It’s about choosing faith over fear, action over surrender.
Rob rode for awareness.
Rob rode for his family.
Rob rode to end the stigma of chemotherapy.
But most of all, he rode because faith and love gave him a reason to keep moving forward — even when the road was steep, uncertain, and longer than he ever imagined.
Today, Rob is still here.
Working.
Living.
Loving.
Laughing.
Searching for that final key to the last 4%.
And in every sense that matters, still riding.
