By GEOFF COWLES
Bike Midwest Staff Writer
DUCKTOWN, TENNESSEE — “It’s okay to stumble, but don’t fall. You can rest, but you can’t quit.”
That’s sage advice for an extreme mountain biker. For Kevin Scoggins, they are words to live by.
In 2005, Scoggins heard the words, “stage four non-Hodgkins lymphoma.” At one time, that meant batteries of chemotherapy, radiation treatments, suffering and coming face-to-face with the inevitable.
It was upon hearing those words that Scoggins, age 36 at the time, really began to live. The southeast Tennessee resident has remade his life in the foothills of the beautiful, scenic Smoky Mountains and has taken control of his illness from the saddle of his bicycle.
Even with that, nobody would have guessed that he would become a mountain biker, let alone ride in a National Ultra Endurance Series bike race. In spite of everything he has faced in six years as a cancer patient, Scoggins expects to line up with the other bikers on April 30 in Ducktown, Tennessee for the rugged Cohutta 100, a 100-mile trip around the Cohutta National Wilderness Area.
Scoggins takes on a course that is challenging for experienced bikers. It comes complete with a 12,000-foot elevation gain, inclines and steep downhill drops throughout. The wildest terrain covers over 35 miles of single-track trails. The remainder mixes remote forest service roads, mountainous curves, and breathtaking mountain pass vistas. The Cohutta 100 covers a very beautiful scenic route through nature.
It’s one tough course, but Scoggins has seen his share of tough.
“I went through six months of chemotherapy,” said the 6-foot-1 Scoggins about his 2005 diagnosis. “Unlike most people. I actually gained weight. I was always a pretty well-built guy and, at the time I found out I was sick, I weighed about 215 pounds. I gained a lot, going through treatment with the medications and stuff they were giving me to combat the side effects. I was in bad shape.”
Scoggins was so weak at one point that his wife was helping him into the doctor’s office.
“My doctor said that he wanted me to lose some weight,” said Scoggins. “I said, ‘What do you want me to do? I needed help getting into your office.’ He said, ‘Ride a bicycle or something.’ I hadn’t ridden a bike since I was 10. Of course, everyone has one hanging in their garage forever and they don’t put any miles on it. Well, I got it out with a couple of friends and we took our bikes out to an extensive trail system, about 20 minutes from where I live. I went a couple of miles and I thought I was going to die.”
For Scoggins, however the beauty of eastern Tennessee and the need to regain his health became a potent weapon in his fight against cancer. Despite the hardship, he kept going back.
“It’s mountainous and the most scenic state in the land of the free,” said Scoggins. “We’ve got all kinds of single track trails and fire roads. It’s just awesome around here.”
He quickly upgraded his bike, first getting a hard tail and then, a full-suspension bike. With that, the distances started piling up.
“With a full suspension bike, you don’t get beat up as bad,” said Scoggins, who rides a Gary Fisher 29er Hi-Fi Pro, “From there, one mile turned into six miles, six miles turned into 20 miles. Twenty miles turned into 30 miles.”
Last year, Scoggins entered the Big Frog 65 which is run alongside the Cohutta 100, The shorter distance allowed him to get a taste of the course, which is only half an hour’s drive from his house.
Even as he prepares for this year’s big race, the chemo treatment goes on. Scoggins endured another round of it in early March.
“I’ve had 50 chemo treatments in the last five years,” said Scoggins. “It’s a mental game. It will beat you up mentally. I use the mountain bike as an escape. It’s like a drug of choice. I did a chemo treatment on a Friday and I competed in a local mountain bike race (the following week) and actually won the Clydesdale class (over 200 pounds). What helps me is to set my goals within reach. Some people set goals that are so astronomical that they will never attain it. I like to set a goal that’s within my grasp, so that I have something to strive for. The goal I set for this year, for the Cohutta 100, is to complete a 100-mile mountain bike race. That’s my destination and I’m going to do it. It might take me 10 or 12 hours, but I am going to do it.”
A mountain race course is a tough adversary, but Scoggins has to beat a tougher opponent every day.
“(A race) leaves you beat up,” said Scoggins, who supplements his outdoor work by playing racquet ball and taking spin classes on a stationary bike at his local YMCA. “It’s a drain and a strain on the body but for the things I have already been through, there’s nothing that the Cohutta 100 can do to me that can surpass the things that the cancer has already done to me. Whenever I refer to it, I refer to it as, ‘my cancer.’ It doesn’t have me. I have it. I try to control it like that. I don’t let it limit me.”
Scoggins expected the cancer to be a painful experience, but cancer has given him things that he never expected.
“Cancer has been a blessing and a curse,” explained Scoggins. “You might say, ‘How could cancer possibly be a blessing?’ It has been the people that I have been able to come into contact with where, otherwise, our paths might not ever have crossed. They have told me that I have helped them deal with what they are going through, whether it’s cancer, some other illness or just trouble in their life. There’s also people that have influenced me in the same way.”
It is the blessings that help Scoggins face the difficult challenges on the course and in the daily struggles of his life.
“I believe you’re tested everyday,” he said. “I believe that God tests you in ways that are unseen — even if you don’t recognize what is going on at that moment. I honestly believe that the decisions you make, on a daily basis, is just like coming to a crossroads. The decision that you make at that crossroads determines that path you are going to go on that day.”
His love of the outdoors doesn’t go on the shelf when it is too cold to ride.
“I love to hunt,” said Scoggins. “I’m a very avid outdoorsman. It’s always been in my blood and probably always will be. For me, it’s not about the kill. I can’t tell you the number of mornings I have sat in the woods with a camera rather than hunting equipment, just to take a picture of the sunrise or the leaves changing colors.”
Who knows how many more sunrises there will be? Scoggins plans to enjoy every one of them with a reborn sense of what is important.
“Once you’ve encountered country like cancer and you wake up that next day, you are thankful to be alive” said Scoggins. ”People ask me, ‘How’s it going?’ and I tell them, ‘I woke up above ground, today. It’s a pretty good day.’ The sky is a little bluer, the grass is a little greener, the roses smell a little fresher and the hugs are a little sweeter. If anyone can take away anything from meeting me, it’s that cancer is not a death sentence. It’s just more of a reason to live.”