For the 23 student-cyclists that are riding with the Illini 4000, Tuesday was an early, welcome reception in their cross-country trip.

The peloton arrived at the Alice Campbell Alumni Center around 5:30 p.m. to a reception of groups, namely the American Cancer Society.

The aptly named Illini 4000 will travel 4,000 miles from New York to Seattle to raise, they hope, more than $100,000 for cancer research.

A mixed group of sunburned and tanned riders spoke about the experiences of their trip.

“It’s been an amazing ride so far, and we’ve all put a ton of work in so far,” one of the group’s founders, Jonathan Schlesinger, said. “We’ve been through so much together, if just some small things like riding together and getting to know each other, to major things like getting to see the Walter Reed Center. You grow so much on a trip like this.”

The Reed Center is a cancer research and treatment facility in Washington that the 4000 toured and met with those are affected by cancer.

“As physically as demanding as this ride can be, when you get to meet those people who have been through cancer and beating it, that’s what gives you energy,” Illini 4000 founder Nick Ludmer said about the Reed Center. “We’ve seen some very, very unfortunate things that can break you down. But when you have the team there to support you and go through those things with you, it makes you stronger.”

While the group is worried about being emotionally strong when dealing with the cancer patients and survivors, for those who are new to Illini 4000, there is the concern of being physically strong. A 4,000-mile ride is hardly something that one just jumps into and, as Ludmer said, a great deal of the riders, including Dana McKenna, are new to the sport.

“I’m a very inexperienced cyclist, I don’t have a (long-distance) bike or know too much about them,” McKenna said. “(Schlesinger) was my RA in Allen Hall my freshman year and he was involved in it then. Seeing them prepare for it and reading their blogs from last year was so amazing to me, it really interested me.”

McKenna, Schlesinger, Ludmer and the rest of Illini 4000 still have roughly 3,000 miles to go on their trip. But for the riders, the trip isn’t about finishing a quantitative goal, but rather, doing something for others.

“When we reached the 1,000-mile mark, I was thinking, ‘We’ve already accomplished this much,’ not, ‘We still have so much to do,'” McKenna said. “I know that we can continue from here, especially when we know what we’re doing this for.”