On April 26 at least 100 Atlantans will ride 100 virtual miles on an indoor bike to raise funds for ovarian cancer. Known as Ovarian Cycle, this annual springtime sports event and wellness program whips one into shape while getting pledges.

“Everyone who gets on a bike is doing so to honor someone or in their memory,” explains Bethany Diamond, a fitness expert who coordinates Ovarian Cycle every spring to honor the memory of her dear friend, Debbie Flamm.

Debbie died in Dec. of 2003, she recalls. I didn’t know what to do; I was angry, I was hurting.” So she started with what she knows: exercise. “I worked with Donna Smythe, who knows about non-profit organizations and I put in my own two cents worth of fitness knowledge and we came up with Ovarian Cycle.”

To date, Ovarian Cycle has already raised more than $360,000 for ovarian cancer research. “We need to find a test to diagnose this cancer earlier so we can save women; we need an accurate tool.”

On March 15 training began for the big day when most riders will log six hours on a bike. “If you can’t do 100 miles, form a team,” suggests Diamond. “It doesn’t matter how you reach your goal, as long as you get there and you raise money in the process.”

To motivate riders hour after hour as their thighs get sore and chafed from the bike seat, she keeps an empty bike within everyone’s sight. The purpose? “To remind us that not everyone can be here and that we’ve lost wonderful people like Debbie Flamm, who would’ve been here riding like the rest of us, if there had been a test, or an earlier diagnosis.”

For information go online: www.ovariancycle.org.