Perched in a lawn chair Saturday afternoon, Gary Bonacker labored his way through lunch, each bite of his burrito interrupted by a fresh group of sweaty, spandex-clad well-wishers dropping by for a visit.

The founder of the Tour des Chutes, Central Oregon’s annual anti-cancer fundraising bike tour, Bonacker missed last year’s event when a series of seizures linked to a brain tumor landed him in the hospital. Though Bonacker said his recollection of that time is somewhat unclear, his wife, Susan Bonacker, spent Tour des Chutes day last year running back and forth from the ride to his hospital bed to keep him updated, and assures him today that he was “bummed” to be missing out on the action.

“It is really good to be back,” he said.

A co-owner of Sunnyside Sports and one of the creators of the Cascade Cycling Classic, Bonacker, 59, launched the Tour des Chutes shortly after he was diagnosed with a brain cancer in 2003. Though he rode in the first few events, his declining health has relegated him to an organizer role and “poster guy,” a position he’s somewhat reluctantly accepted.

Days before last year’s ride, Bonacker was running errands on his bike in downtown Bend when he was hit with a seizure, an event that had been a roughly weekly occurrence since his diagnosis. But instead, Bonacker’s seizures kept coming, long seizures, multiple times a day, for days on end. Though he recovered, Bonacker went through a similar bout of seizures in May lasting nine days.

Bonacker said as his doctors can’t provide him with any assurance that his next setback isn’t imminent, he doesn’t bother with looking more than a day or two ahead. Saturday, so far, was looking like a pretty good day, he said.

“It’s difficult to do, but you try to live each day better than you did the day before,” he said, grimacing at the sound of his own words. “I know, that sounds kind of like a Hallmark card, doesn’t it?”

Starting from High Lakes Elementary School in Northwest Crossing, the Tour des Chutes riders fan out across the region on five routes of varying distance, from a short 7-mile loop through Bend’s west side to a 100-miler though the countryside to Smith Rock and back. Riders typically decorate their jerseys with the names of friends or family members affected by cancer, and many are cancer survivors — at the finish line, survivors are routed away from other riders and issued a yellow rose.

Ride organizer Leslie Cogswell said this year’s attendance was slightly up from last year’s, setting a new record.

“I always say this is an event about community and an event with heart, and I’m definitely feeling that today,” she said.

For the first time, all of the funds raised by this year’s ride will be distributed locally, divided between the Cancer Survivorship Program at St. Charles Bend and the Pediatric Foundation, a newly created nonprofit that helps families of children with cancer cover food, gas, lodging and other expenses associated with the child’s treatment. In past years, a portion of the proceeds were given to the Livestrong Foundation created by cyclist Lance Armstrong.

Bonacker said he’s already kicking around a few ideas for the 10th anniversary Tour des Chutes next year, as it’s a significant anniversary both for the ride and in his own personal fight with cancer. Despite focusing his own life largely on the present, Bonacker is supremely confident in the future of the Tour des Chutes.

“When I’m gone, when my ride director’s gone, 30 years from now, when volunteers get volunteer burnout, when things change — it’s still going to be an event,” he said. “Things change, but that’s good.”