The Five Towns are well represented at Bike4Chai event

A bicycle bell ringing indicates that a bicyclist is heading toward you, and if you live in the Five Towns, chances are, it could be Allan Lieberman or a member of his 5T Riders team, a group of over 100 bike riders that represent the area and Far Rockaway.

Lieberman, a mortgage broker for commercial real estate, started cycling in 2010 while attending spin classes. He was always intrigued by cycling and the various ways to cycle, such as mountain biking and road biking, but never saw himself as committed to it as he is now.

An industry colleague’s participation in a charity ride to help fund an organization Lieberman was aware of for many years — Chai Lifeline — an international group that supports children who have life-threatening illnesses, sparked an interest in him to be a part of the effort.

The annual event, Bike4Chai, is a two-day fundraising event that brings together hundreds of cyclists worldwide to help raise money for Chai Lifeline children and their families.

It dates to 2009 when Chai Lifeline volunteer Dovid Egert was told he wasn’t allowed to take his bike to Camp Simcha in upstate Glen Spey, Chai Lifeline’s summer camp that offers children with cancer and other disorders weeks of fun that aims to imbue them with courage and spirit, while battling serious illness.

Egert posted an internet video indicating that he planned on biking to the camp, a 135-mile bike ride from his home in Lakewood, New Jersey, while fundraising for the camp, 14 years ago.

The video was a hit.

He raised $10,000, and that trip alone sparked the existence of the now annual Bike 4 Chai event, attracting many bikers from around the world to do the same.

Lieberman, who serves as co-captain with Cedarhurst resident Mark Klein, has come together to lead the fundraising 5T Riders group for the last few years.

Their official first year was in 2019 and Lieberman said that the team has been solidly represented.

“Teams have come and gone but the 5T Riders have been solidly represented as a formal team for the last few years,” he said.

There are teams from Brooklyn, Great Neck, Canada, Houston and Minneapolis.

“This is not a formal club,” Lieberman clarified. “This is our group, those that are coming from this part of town, the Five Towns and Far Rockaway, riders from this area.”

Group members bike in their free time during the early hours of the morning before work, on Friday afternoons before Sabbath, on Sunday’s or federal holidays.

Although there are roughly 100 members on the team, only 50 of them take part in the event. This year’s Bike4Chai took place Aug. 9 to 10.

First day was a 100-mile ride that began and ended at the Kalahari Resort in Pennsylvania’s Poconos Mountains. On the next day it was a 60-mile ride from the resort to Camp Simcha.

According to bike4chai.com, the goal for the Five Towns-based team was to raise $516,000 for services such as counseling and case management, meals delivered to hospitals and homes, transportation to medical appointments, Camp Simcha and other services for more than 5,900 children and families.

Nearly $604,000 was raised making 5T Riders a top five fundraiser.

Through the annual event, Lieberman has come to know children and families who benefit from Camp Simcha, as the money is used for the children to attend the summer sleepaway camp.

“One of the former campers who benefited from this camp described how this is the one event, the one week that they look forward to all year,” he said. “It pushes them and motivates them to undergo the most difficult of treatments.”

“They look forward to one thing: their one week of heaven in attending Camp Simcha,” Lieberman added. “Our fundraisers are able to sustain the budget to run Camp Simcha year after year and as a result, they’ve been able to grow and bring in more children, increase the size of the facility and children are flown all across the world to participate.”

Simcha is Hebrew for happiness.

“After riding for six years in a row, to me, it’s easy to go back year after year,” Klein wrote in a text. “The cause and the organization Chai Lifeline is incredible, the event and cycling itself is pretty epic. But what stood out to me for 2023 was what our particular team, ‘The 5T Riders,’ had more this year than ever before and that was an insane amount of camaraderie, team work, support and friendship at a whole new level from riders of all ages and all levels. Working together got the goal.”