One More City

Christine O’Connell set up the One More City fundraising campaign after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She and her cycling teammates have raised more than £500,000 to support much-needed research positions through their world-wide events.

Christine started the annual fundraiser in 2017 when she and four friends rode to Paris to raise money for breast cancer support services – something she had benefited from following her own diagnosis in 2012. Just months after the cycle, Christine learned her cancer had returned and had spread to her brain and her bones. Following surgery and radiotherapy she was given the targeted treatment palbociclib, the clinical trials of which had been led by the ICR in the UK.

Christine said: “I’d always worried my cancer would come back, but I hadn’t really thought about how it would happen. It was hard to accept how one minute you were seemingly cancer-free, and the next you were facing an incurable disease that could progress at any stage.

“The more I learned about secondary breast cancer, the more I realised that this was where our fundraising should be going. In 20-30% of women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer, the disease later spreads to another part of the body – and my hope is that One More City will help find a way to give patients a longer life.”

“The journey is never over”

The goal of One More City is to cycle from one city to another, setting off each year from the city they finished in the year before. In 2017 four riders rode from London to Paris and 2018 saw a team of 30 ride from Paris to Amsterdam. Since then, rider numbers have grown, and the multi-day annual rides have taken them through France, Germany and Italy – with riders raising funds for much-needed research. Even the outbreak of coronavirus did not hinder the team’s determination. Through careful planning under exceptionally challenging circumstances, they were able to organise rides from London back to London via the Peak District in 2020, and from Reading to Penzance in 2021.

“With the ethos, ‘the journey is never over'; we are always progressing towards the next city, there are always more kilometres to do, more climbs to conquer, and more challenges to face. One More City reflects the reality of living with cancer, where the challenge is ongoing – there are always more treatments to endure, more scans to face, and more side effects to manage.” - Christine O’Connell

 

In more recent years, a series of global one day fundraising rides have been added to the One More City roster. In 2025, rides were hosted in Sydney, Melbourne, Fukuoka, Singapore, Hong Kong, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Manchester, and London – with more than 450 riders across the 10 cities. The London route went via the ICR research campuses in Chelsea and Sutton to allow riders to see where ICR breast cancer research takes place.  

More details about upcoming rides and how to join them can be found here.

Funds have also been raised through multiple Rapha One More City cycling kit collections. Special edition jerseys and accessories have been designed, with inspiration being taken from the research the campaign is supporting. The 2025 design, which Christine is pictured wearing above, incorporates representations of structures in our bodies that allow cancer cells to move and spread combined with floral motifs symbolising resilience and renewal. 

The One More City campaign has generously raised funds to support three research positions here at the ICR. Funds have made research projects by Hwei Minn Khoo and Shaun Tan possible. Hwei Minn commenced her project in October 2023 in Dr Rachael Natrajan’s lab, investigating treatment resistance in triple-negative breast cancer. Shaun started in Professor Vicky Sanz-Moreno’s lab in November 2024 and is looking at how and why breast cancer spreads. Most recently, funds have been raised to support an upcoming Clinical Research Fellow position in Professor Sanz-Moreno’s lab to further push the ICR’s research into advanced breast cancer.

Dr Rachael Natrajan, who heads the Breast Cancer Functional Genomics team, and taken part in a One More City ride herself, says: “With One More City’s support, we hope to be able to deliver new treatments for secondary breast cancer patients and give them the opportunity to live the lives they want.”