Jana Sampson, a trauma and oncology nurse who also survived breast cancer, beamed after returning to the start line at the 2025 Sea Otter Classic gravel race. Surrounded by thousands of bike-loving people all weekend, Sampson took it all in as a sign for why she started riding in the first place.
“Originally, I got into cycling about 2008 when I was living in Iowa,” the Bicycling All-Access member recalls. “I met up with some folks, and they’re like, ‘Hey, we ride to this bar out in the middle of nowheresville on Tuesday for tacos.’ They had me at tacos.”
It turned out to be a 25-mile round-trip ride that became a weekly ritual for the 50-year-old Sampson.
To say that her cycling escalated quickly is an understatement: One minute, she was buying her first cyclocross bike, then, she bought an RV so she could travel more to race. She was in love.
“There were so few women racing in Iowa that I took home prizes at every single race—it was the best thing ever!” she laughs.
But then, in 2011, things started to change. She moved with her family to the Bay Area in Northern California. “I became a trauma nurse, and saw people dying on the bike there,” she says. “And so we were a family with 12 bikes that sat in place and didn’t get used for 10 years. In that time, I also got divorced. We went through a lot. And then in 2020, COVID hit.”
Sampson says she worked in unrelentingly tragic conditions, and she desperately needed an outlet. She was riding a Peloton bike and it provided some relief, but the craving for the outdoors was real. “And so I took up riding again, I pulled out my old Jamis Supernova and went for a ride. And it was awesome,” she says. “It was a perfect chance to start riding again because I lived right at the base of Mount Diablo, where everyone loves to ride, and they shut down Mount Diablo for cars during COVID.”
She had caught the bug again.
“Cycling was my therapy,” she says. “COVID sucked for nurses. Everyone else was learning how to make bread and drink beer in the driveway, and I was taking care of people, and then riding my bike, and so that was really all that I had during that time.”
As the restrictions eased, Sampson wanted to find a group like the one she had in Iowa. She met a group of about 20 that rides gravel, and that became her new cycling community.
In 2024, she not only wrecked her rotator cuff while on a biking trip, she found a lump in her breast. “I was just starting work in the oncology unit in a brand new hospital. I just moved there. It was my first month, and I didn’t even have an insurance card when I had to go get a mammogram and figure out what’s going on,” she says. “So I went through all of the treatment for breast cancer last year, and then I had to get my rotator cuff done.”
Thankfully, the story does have a happy ending. The rotator cuff repair went well, and the treatment for the cancer worked. And she got back on the bike.
In fact, the 30-mile gravel race at Sea Otter was her first gravel ride back.
“I loved the course. There was a lovely mix of road and singletrack, and no, I did not love the climbs at the end. But heading up the one final summit there was a group of drummers and they really made it feel epic as we got to the top. I made it up and just yelled, ‘Woo!’ and they all yelled ‘Woo!’ back!
“I got very tearful and emotional afterward, because it was my first day back racing,” she says. “I got back to the van today, and I just started crying. I’m still so emotional because it’s like, you don’t know if surgery is gonna work. You don’t know if cancer is going to be cured. You just don’t know. But in that moment, I felt like I knew things were going to be good. Today was my coming out party.”
Part of her relaunch into cycling is thanks to her equally bike-loving partner, who Sampson says has been the best helpmate anyone could ask for during her recovery. “He was so helpful and awesome and wonderful. But he’s also let me be independent and try to do things on my own,” she says.
Now that she’s been given the green light to ride again, she wants to keep exploring the gravel in her new home state of Colorado—and work on her mountain biking. “In about two months, I’ll be cleared to ride on the mountain bike again, and I want to go to Fruita and Moab—we’ve been going on these trips where everyone else has been riding and I’ve been stuck hiking, so I can’t wait.”
More than just being back on the bike to pedal, being back on the bike means rejoining the community that she missed while she’s been away. And the love of the bike comes through loud and clear. Consider the Sea Otter Classic race: She didn’t take the win, but she did leave her mark on the course. “I think I would get cheerleader of the day today on the mountain,” she says. “Every single person that passed me, I cheered, ‘Let’s go! You got this!’
“That’s who I want to be in races—I want to be the cheerleader. I believe that what you put out, you get back,” she says. “And after races, people come up and thank me for the support. And that’s how I want people to remember me.”
Molly writes about cycling, nutrition and training with an emphasis on bringing more women into sport. She's the author of nine books including the Shred Girls series and is the founder of Strong Girl Publishing. She co-hosts The Consummate Athlete Podcast and spends most of her free time biking and running on trails, occasionally joined by her mini-dachshund.
