This article is the fourteenth in a series profiling the varied and amazing nominees for the 2008 Alice B. Toeclips Awards, which will be presented to five winners at the Alice Awards & Auction on March 22nd. We won't have time to interview everyone, so be sure to check out their descriptions online. This profile was written by BTA correspondent John McLaren

Record setting cyclist and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong inspired Norrene Godfrey’s mother to fight on, as the older woman was dying of cancer eight years ago. Armstrong sent Norrene Valente (mother and daughter share the same name) a yellow shirt he had won for a stage victory in the 1999 Tour de France. The shirt was signed, “Fight mom, Lance Armstrong.”

Thus encouraged, Valente lived six months longer than expected, long enough to attend her daughter’s wedding. To repay Armstrong for his kindness, Norrene Godfrey assembled a cycling team that would ride in support of the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF) and its fight against cancer. In this way, Team Rubicon was born.

Under Godfrey’s direction, the team has two purposes: Develop young U23 (under the age of 23) cycling athletes, and raise funds and awareness for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. The team has raised more than $58,000 for the LAF and sold 2,200 LiveStrong wristbands. It has visited numerous children’s hospitals and schools in towns before and after races and engaged with cancer patients and survivors. About half these races are in Oregon.

Most of this money is raised in two big annual events, the LiveStrong Challenge, which will take place June 29 of this year in Portland, and a LiveStrong Day event in North Little Rock, Arkansas. For these occasions, the Rubicon team members do not actually race. Instead, they raise serious money and provide vehicle and bike support, road scouting and pedicab rides for ailing kids.

When Godfrey and her friend Darien Curl started Team Rubicon it was a small women’s group. After “lots of trial and error,” they switched to male riders, seeking promising young competitors who had been overlooked in most development programs. Their first recruit, in 2003, was 18-year-old Dean Tracy, who’s still with the team. New members were added through networking. The current crew consists of 13 cyclists, including two Australians and two riders from New Zealand. Their season, which includes numerous road and track races, is just beginning and will continue until mid-September.

“Godfrey’s passion for helping those affected by cancer is so strong that the young Team Rubicon riders she works with develop a similar sense of caring about the community,” says Barb Grover, community outreach manager for the Bike Gallery, one of the team’s commercial sponsors.

Godfrey, a production artist at Nike, and her husband David both race bicycles themselves, Norrene for 22 years and David for 15. Despite her success with Team Rubicon, the modest Norrene tries to deflect the spotlight from herself. “This team isn't about me,” she says. “I just guide it.”

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