Seán Kennymeets the Clare hurler who after just four months' intensive training is cycling across Canada for cancer charity

"He said to me, 'Are you biking for long?' I said, 'I got my first proper bike last week.' Yeah, he looked quite surprised. I told him I'd just started cycling four months ago."

It was late April and Tony Griffin was chatting to Lance Armstrong as they cycled around the latter's hometown of Austin, Texas. Although an unlikely pairing, multiple threads connected the All Star hurler and the seven-time Tour de France winner. Both have the relentless drive of the sporting obsessive. Both have scaled the heights in their chosen discipline. Both founded cancer charities.

It wasn't the first time they'd shared a stretch of road, though. Back in July 2005, within hours of scoring 1-2 for Clare in their championship qualifier against Waterford, Griffin took an early-morning flight to Lyon, driving a hired car on to Grenoble. He had an urge to see the Tour de France up close and marvelled at the sheer elemental intensity of it.

Two years later, he has withdrawn from the Clare panel for this summer to take on his own cycling marathon, biking 7,000km across Canada and Ireland over the next two months. The meeting with Armstrong was a symbolic prelude to the act; Griffin hopes to raise $500,000 for Armstrong's charity.

To avoid any possible misunderstandings over his appearance outside Armstrong's home wielding a stick, he explained the national sport.

"I showed him hurling. We pucked a ball around. He was a bit bemused. He couldn't get over hurling. He'd never heard about this sport, even though he's quite friendly with Seán Kelly."

He presented Armstrong with a bespoke stick from Dowling's in Kilkenny. Armstrong signed a couple of Clare jerseys, to be auctioned for the charity. He gave Griffin a private viewing of his own yellow jerseys, now framed and hanging in his home. The Clareman is circumspect when talking about Armstrong.

"He's so methodical and so driven. I'm sure there are aspects to his personality, like everyone's, that we don't always love. By no means is the man perfect, but he definitely is an inspiration in the sense of what a dream or vision can become if you stick to it."

The Tony Griffin 7,000km Ride for the Cure was a vision born out of darkness. In December 2005, Griffin's father, Jerome, died from lung cancer. He was a non-smoker who had the lethal misfortune to spend part of his working life in proximity to asbestos.

Tony's memories of his father are bound closely with hurling. He clung tightly to his hurley in the summer after Jerome's death.

It was arguably his best season in a Clare jersey. His tally of 1-19 - all from play - helped Clare to the All-Ireland semi-finals. Still, something gnawed insistently at his core.

"For 12 months after my father died I didn't really do anything. My catharsis was hurling with Clare and I devoted myself to that. When the championship was over I just had a rumbling feeling that there was something coming I needed to do.

"I just felt the time was right. The idea came to me and I thought, 'that's crazy; I don't even own a bike'. But it kept coming back into my mind. After I spoke to a few people I thought: why not? My family were very wary I'd make a decision I'd regret regarding hurling but it's been a great experience. I suppose we all have our purpose, and this is mine."

He is 26 now and was his county's sole All Star last year. The decision to withdraw from Clare's 2007 championship panel to do the cycle weighed heavily at a time of upheaval in the county.

"It was a tough decision because I knew Tony (Considine) was coming in as the new manager. The likes of Brian (Lohan) and Seánie (McMahon) were leaving and then the whole thing with Davy Fitzgerald broke. I did get some negativity back from Clare: 'This guy's got his All Star and now he's just leaving us'.

"That wasn't the case because I'd planned to do this long before there was any mention of an All Star. The players have been fantastic about it."

When Clare play Cork in the Munster semi-final on May 27th, he will be trundling along the rutted rural roads of northern Ontario. Clare will miss him and he will miss Clare.

Since moving to Canada in September 2004 to study human kinetics at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, it has always been thus: Clare hurling pervading his thoughts.

With an eye on the summer, he has run up snowbound hills in the glacial depths of the Nova Scotia winter as stamina training. He has pucked sliotars around every available space on the Dalhousie campus.

"There were so many similarities between preparing for the cycle and preparing for a Munster championship. There are differences too, of course. After a hard hurling session, your legs are stiff and sore because of the lactic acid build-up. In cycling, it's about trying to teeter on the edge of, but not going over, that stage where you start to produce lactic acid."

He was accustomed to the staccato rhythm of 70 minutes on the hurling field. Sprint-rest-sprint. He has had to adapt to the consistently draining slog that is long-distance cycling. There is no let-up, mile by sinew-straining mile.

After four months of intensive training, his physique has changed. He has lost upper-body mass and the legs have bulked up, honed to their task. Seven per cent body fat; burning up to 7,000 calories per day; the numbers attest to the raw demands he is placing on his body.

He feels he is up to the immense challenge, but there are dangers. Once, on a training ride together, his friend, Bruce Mansour, had a heavy fall. Hearing the wincing crack of human bone on concrete, he was put in mind of the day his Clare team-mate Gerry Quinn broke a hand in the 2002 All-Ireland semi-final. He tries not to think of these things. He cannot but be positive.

Come July 1st, he will roll into Ennis having completed the Irish leg. It will be a day heavy with symbolism and emotion as he is met by his family.

"It was so difficult for my father when he got his diagnosis. When I think of how well he handled it and the dignity he showed, it's just about doing him justice."

If his body can take it, and if Clare are still in the championship as the summer evenings shorten, he might even fit some hurling in too. Big ifs, but there was a curiously apposite ring to his first stopping-off point in Canada: a town called Hope.

Donations made in Ireland go to The Irish Cancer Society www.tonygriffinfoundation.com