Community Health & Wellness
Don’t get Wigged Out by this gang of bikers
Sue Scanlon beat breast cancer in her 40s. By comparison, learning to ride a motorcycle in her mid-50s wasn’t that big a deal.
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She and other survivors created the Wigged Out Ride after Scanlon and her husband Pat discovered a passion for motorcycling in 2014. And that is a big deal.
This year’s ride, which is Sunday, Oct. 1, looks like the biggest yet.
Scanlon is expecting about 100 riders to bike from LeMay Car Museum to Uptown Gig Harbor and then on to St. Anthony Hospital on Sunday. The first ride, in 2015, drew about 10; last year they had more than 80.
Most of the riders will be decked out in pink in honor of the start of Breast Cancer Awareness month. Many will wear bright pink wigs.
Wigged Out riders dress up and decorate their bikes. Photo courtesy Sue Scanlon
A Wigged Out idea
Wigs are what the ride is all about. The regular kind, that is, not the bright-pink variety.
Funds raised during the Wigged Out Ride pay for wigs distributed free to women going through chemotherapy, radiation and other awful-but-necessary cancer treatments. In nine years, the ride has raised more than $15,000 to help cancer patients and distributed wigs to some 400 women.
For Scanlon and the ride’s other organizers, it’s part of giving back to a community that supported them during their cancer journeys. Scanlon was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006, at age 46.
Motorcyles lined up and ready to start the Wigged Out Ride. Photo courtesy Sue Scanlon
“The only way I make sense of what I went through is to bring healing to others,” said Scanlon, an Australian who moved to the Gig Harbor area in 2000 and lived here until 2017. She now lives just across the bridge, in the Procter neighborhood of Tacoma, and works as the executive administrator of the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation. “To do something good for them.”
Wigs are expensive. They can cost anywhere from $50 to $150, according to Lynn MacGougan, who volunteers to help women select and procure wigs at St. Anthony and other hospitals.
Let’s ride
Getting them free is a huge relief for women going through chemo. So is having someone to help pick out a wig.
“My whole goal is really just to make these people feel normal for a time,” MacGougan said. “From my perspective, they can go out, maybe have lunch with a girlfriend. And people don’t stare at them like they have cancer.”
Wigs available for use by women facing cancer. Photo courtesy Sue Scanlon
This year’s Wigged Out Ride starts at 9:30 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 1, at the LeMay Car Museum in Tacoma. Riders will roar down Ruston Way in Tacoma, take a sharp left at Point Defiance and proceed across the Narrows Bridge before arriving at Uptown around 11 a.m.
At around noon, riders will leave Uptown and drive through town en route to St. Anthony, where they will take a group photo and mingle with oncology nurses at 12:30 p.m. After that, they head to Bremerton for a late lunch at Indian Motorcycle, 5205 1st St., at 2 p.m.
Riders can still register to participate, and anybody can make a donation to the cause. Click here to do that.
Wigged Out riders get ready at LeMay Car Museum. Photo courtesy Sue Scanlon
Wigged Out Ride schedule
9:30 a.m.: Gather at LeMay Car Museum, 2702 E. D Street, Tacoma
10:15 a.m.: Depart LeMay
11 a.m.: Arrive at Uptown Gig Harbor on Point Fosdick Road
12:30 p.m.: Group photo at St. Anthony Hospital in Gig Harbor
2 p.m.: Lunch at Indian Motorcycle, 5205 1st St., Bremerton