• Slide show: Images from the Tour de Grandview

Jeff Braumberger competed against cyclists half his age at the Tour de Grandview this weekend.

The challenge of keeping up with youngsters pales in comparison to what he has been through.

The 45-year-old from Mansfield is a two-time cancer survivor. He beat testicular cancer in 1996 and melanoma five years later.

"When everyone hears the word cancer they say, 'Oh my God, you had to go through cancer,' " said Braumberger, who finished 13th yesterday. "But it wasn't that bad. Yes, it was life-threatening, but I was lucky."

Braumberger has been racing since the 1980s, spending some time as a professional racer but most as a competitive rider while teaching.

In 1996, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He took a month off from racing before radiation treatment but continued competing once the treatment began. After two weeks, he was forced out of competition. But soon after he went back to racing and teaching.

"I was going to race my bike no matter what," Braumberger said.

Braumberger overcame his first bout with cancer. But in 2001, two years after getting married, he was diagnosed with melanoma.

He said unlike when he had testicular cancer, this time he had help overcoming the condition. One of his teammates was a medical school student and advised Braumberger on what to do. When the situation got worse, Braumberger went to a doctor.

"I was kind of freaked out a little bit because there's a chart that you can gauge where you are, and I misread the chart and thought I was at stage four, which is pretty much you better start planning (for death)," Braumberger said. "I was actually at stage one or two."

Braumberger took just a couple of days off from cycling after the outpatient procedure to treat his melanoma. Now he races in about 25 events a year. Last year, he finished fourth and sixth in the two Tour de Grandview events. On Saturday, he had a mechanical problem with five laps to go and didn't finish, but his Texas Roadhouse teammates swept first, second and third.

"He's been around a long time and has been a good friend of mine for over a decade," said Kirk Albers, a teammate who won both men's races during the weekend. "He's a great guy to have on the team."

Despite all that he's been through, Braumberger, a computer literacy teacher, maintained he hasn't done anything extraordinary.

"Even though I'm a two-time cancer survivor, I don't consider myself an inspiration because I think a lot more people have gone through a lot harder times than I have with cancer," Braumberger said. "If I inspire somebody, great, but I was extremely lucky to find it really early in both cases."

Braumberger is married with two daughters. He recently earned a master's degree and hopes to move from teaching to school administration. He said although he will continue to race competitively, he will probably pare down his schedule relatively soon and compete at a club level instead of for a team.

"Every year I think it's going to be our last year racing," said Julie Braumberger, Jeff's wife. "He can't do it as much anymore with the kids, but he tries. He does it as much as he can get away with."

arakov@dispatch.com