John and Lindsey Moralee have found four legs, two wheels and one shared vision to raise as much money for cancer research as possible, is the perfect approach in the MACA Cancer 200 – Ride for the Perkins.
The husband-and-wife duo has been doing the ride on a tandem bike for the past eight years and while it may have its ups and downs, they wouldn’t have it any other way.
“You either get a tandem and you get divorced, or you enjoy it,” John joked.
“We think it’s fantastic. There’s two of you doing the work and it just makes it more fun.”
Adjusting to getting two riders up hill and managing two coming down has proved to be a learning experience for the Moralees.
“The tandem tends to go uphill really slowly and downhill really fast, so it takes a bit of getting used to,” John said.
While John has been Operations Maintenance Manager with MACA for two years, even before that he was committed to MACA Cancer 200 and 2026 will mark his 14th year riding.
Wife Lindsey is also a long-time supporter of the cause and will be riding in her 11th MACA Cancer 200.
John cites 2018 as probably the most memorable race when woolly weather resulted in the couple waking to find themselves covered in empty tents.
“A massive storm came through, and the weather was pretty horrendous and the ride was hard,” he said. “At one point we were only doing about 6km per hour.
“A lot of people left in the afternoon and went and stayed in town but we stayed in our tent on the Mandurah foreshore. We had a tent swag and were in there and it all went dark and woke up and there were about four or five tents piled on top of us. And there were tents floating in the water and tents jammed in the Ferris Wheel. The storm went through and just tore everything to pieces and there we were asleep in a swag.”
Beyond the race, John, who lost his mother to breast cancer in 2019, is a staunch supporter of the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research and even heads up the Perkins Alliance.
“It will be six years ago this year that we formed the Perkins Alliance, which brings MACA, Mineral Resources WesTrac and WA Limestone as the key founding members of the ride, along with other partners. Through their suppliers the companies all try and get donated in kind all the items we needed to run the event. So, all the vehicles, all the cranes, the marquee, the generators and all the infrastructure items.
“We try and reduce the running costs every year so that more money can go to directly to the research.”
John said he and Lindsey look forward to the ride every year.
“It’s not a race, it’s not about that, it’s a great cause and a great social event,” he said. “And Saturday night’s huge with presentations from the Perkins and from the team captains and cancer survivors. It’s very moving.
“And when you cross the line on day two after 200 or so kilometres, it’s a pretty emotional time as well. Especially for people that are going through cancer or who have lost someone to cancer.”
John said he and Lindsey just want to keep doing their bit to support cancer research.
“It would be quite unrealistic of us to think that the Perkins is going to cure all the cancers, but the real focus is to get the best cancer researchers in the world to the Perkins so that they can develop those treatments,” he said.
“Lots of people are living with cancer these days, it’s important they develop treatments to make people comfortable and extend the time they’ve got with their families.
“I will continue to do the ride for as long as it runs, I will continue to support the Perkins and I will certainly continue to support the MACA Team.”
