A Bermudian cyclist has raised more than $130,000 across 13 years for research into cancer treatment.

The tally for Rory Gorman, 66, came after he completed his latest attempt at the Pan-Mass Challenge in Massachusetts, which pushed him to cycle 186 miles over two days.

Mr Gorman said that his participation went from a ride for fun to something of an obligation, especially when it became personal for him in his most recent race.

He explained: “I was in Boston getting ready for the ride and one evening I got a call from one of my sponsors.

“He said ‘Well Rory, this year you’re kind of riding for me too. I’ve been diagnosed with melanoma and it was caught kind of late, but we’re very hopeful’.”

Mr Gorman added: “You can’t help, while you’re on that ride, be thinking of him, the friends who have died, the relatives who have died and people who are surviving with cancer. It can be a very, very emotional thing.”

The Pan-Mass Challenge is a Massachusetts-based organisation that invites participants to ride anywhere between 25 and 186 miles.

The 14 available routes each have a fundraising minimum and the money goes to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Mr Gorman, from Hamilton Parish, said he first started the cycling challenge in 2013 after a recommendation from his wife.

He explained: “My wife came back from a business trip and had met a cancer survivor who told her about this fundraising ride that she would do every year and it was roughly 200 miles.

“She [his wife] said to his person, whom she’d never met before, ‘Oh, my husband bicycles a lot and he’d love that, I must get him to do that. He’ll see you next year’.”

Mr Gorman said that, since then, he had participated in the longest bicycle stretch available, all while raising thousands of dollars each year.

He said that he went for drinks with a group of cyclists on his first ride and was later invited to join their Mardi Gras-themed racing team, Phat Tuesday.

Mr Gorman said: “Many of us became good friends, even though we don’t see each other that much.

“I’ve been to events at people’s houses and funerals of those who passed away.

“I consider them an extended family — narrowly linked but nevertheless family.”

Mr Gorman said he was lucky enough to have kept the challenge going out of a love for cycling and wanting to do so for a good cause.

He explained that many who joined did so because cancer had impacted them or a loved one in some way.

He added that he was present last year for the Pan-Mass Challenge reaching its $1 billion milestone since starting in 1980.

Mr Gorman said that, on his rides, he met some “extraordinary” people, including a man with one leg doing the challenge.

He added: “You see teenagers doing it and young people doing it, and lots and lots of family members of people who are in treatment or have been in treatment or who have died.”

Mr Gorman said that even one of his fellow team-mates had been diagnosed with ALS — amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive neurodegenerative disease — this past year, yet still came out to cycle for 186 miles.

He added that, in spite of his passion for cycling, it was the cancer survivors and “pedal partners” who kept him going.

Mr Gorman explained that cycling teams would meet a patient of Dana-Farber and their family, and offer them a piece of team merchandise.

He added that photographs of the patients were placed along the route to remind riders of why they were taking part.

Mr Gorman said: “There’s one sign in particular you’ll see some people hold — it’ll say on the front of it ‘thanks to you, I am 5 years old’ and the 5 is crossed out and replaced with a 6.

“It’ll go all the way down and in some cases say ‘I’m 27 years old’.”

He encouraged others to raise funds for any good, reputable cause they were interested in and reminded the public that people more often donated to those they knew.