My name is William Dyar Bentz Jr., I go by Dyar.

In a nutshell, I hate small-talk. I could boringly list off that I was born in Waxahachie, TX, that I was raised in Grandview, TX, and that I moved to North Richland Hills, TX before going to the University of...Texas, but I just don't think that tells it right.

I'd rather let you know that I was born with red hair that turned black before morphing into its current Aryan Blonde, that I grew up in a small town where I could (and did) ride my bike to school every day with no hands, that at my new large suburb middle school I was the only student that knew how to properly catch a craw-daddy (or had any knowledge of the existence of such a creature), and that I go to UT where I'm in an organization that allows me to raise money in the fight against cancer by setting out on a life-shaping, friend-making, fat-slimming, life-time adventure of a bike ride.

I am a people person, which is infamously associated with the term, "sycophant." I am a people person, not in the sense that I suck up and brown-nose, but in that I realize that the only way to truly describe anyone, is to describe tiny, detailed moments in their very "peopleish" lives. My little sister Annie is not just a,"good actress". Annie is an actress who's exuberance, joy, and youthful spirit play such a good Mad Hatter that if not for Tim Burton's deep and everlasting love for Johnny Depp, she would surely have the part. My other sister Morgan is not just any "intelligent and sophisticated young lady", she literally uses "pray-tell" in her daily vocabulary. It would be an insult to the human species to describe my dear sisters as anything other than the world's best walking hoola-hooper and nostril-clencher, respectively.

What I'm trying to get at is that I love human beings, and I fully realize that every single one is entirely different and has their own life story to fully describe them. This is why I'm so excited to ride through the country learning and sharing other's stories all along the way, not only in an attempt to raise awareness and hope to help fight this horrible disease, but to help others experience the love I feel from meeting and caring for others, not only on a state level, but a national, and even a global one.

My name is William Dyar Bentz Jr., I go by Dyar, and I'm riding my bike to Alaska.

My grandfather was diagnosed with skin cancer many years before I even realized what that truly meant.

In the small town of Waxahachie, TX, Dr. Dave Williams is a local hero. Retired now, Dr. Dave, or Doc, or Pop, as I know him, is known throughout the town as one of the most generous and giving souls to have ever graced the fine land of Waxahachie. Honoured regularly by the local high school, Pop still attends almost all of the football and basketball teams’ games and has been considered for many years in the past to be the teams’ Doctor. At the local Presbyterian church, one can never miss Pop’s booming voice in the church’s member-based choir which is always accompanied by very poorly hidden smiles, winks, and funny looks to his loved ones and close friends in attendance at the service. At the town’s country club Dave spends a good portion of his time practicing with his “belly-style” putter, but a much higher portion of his time talking with every single person he sees on the course. Whether he is asking about their families (of which he surely knows every member), making sure everything is ok, talking about his good ole’ Aggies, or just simply taking a second to share a laugh and a smile, Dr. Dave Williams is a source of warmth and welcoming to this town, and to everyone he meets in life. Through working with and really becoming close to his patients and their families from all over town, and some out-of-town, Pop has become not important, but essential to what makes it such a great place that it is. And without the visual scars, you would never know that he is constantly suffering from skin cancer and now, recently diagnosed Leukaemia.

From growing up working on a farm and playing outside in College Station, TX, Pop got permanent skin damage from the sun and was diagnosed with skin cancer much later in his life. I have many recollections growing up of seeing Pop with a new skin graph that upon first sight was quite scary to me, but all fear would quickly be erased as he told me a funny joke or fervently began offering some of his famous white chocolate peanut candies. As the skin cancer somehow found its way into the blood stream giving Pop Leukaemia, his constant and never-ending sessions of chemo-therapy are very tolling on his body and his energy, but one would never notice, as Pop’s sub-conscious demeanour is one that is out to make everyone he meets a little happier.

I ride for Pop. I know that everyone has their own Pop, so incredibly great and wonderful in so many ways, and I know what it would do to them to lose them. Fortunately I am 20 years of age and am still able to spend time with this great man. I ride to help fund research on this infamous killer, so that we can become closer to stopping it, and give everyone more time with their own Pop. If all of this money raised and these miles cycled yields one more day of living for a cancer patient, yields one more day for someone to spend with their Pop, then it is worth it, because I know he means the world to me, and that there are boundless others who feel the exact same way.