June is Cancer Survivor month. Survivor Kelly Motley is biking through France to raise awareness.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — After surviving cancer, 56-year-old Kelly Motley knew she wanted to do something to help women see that it’s possible to keep living life to its fullest after going through so much. Sitting at the breakfast table, she just kept having the same thought.

“Love is a positive and powerful force to help women heal, particularly women who have been impacted by breast cancer,” Motley said. “What does that look like?”

For Motley, it looks like writing a book about battling cancer, and riding her pink bike through the countryside of France in June, National Cancer Survivor month.

Her cyclist journey is called the “Power of Love Tour,” and she is traveling 869.9 miles along France’s Atlantic coast from Jun 1 to June 28.

Kelly Motley has lived in Nashville for 20 years. In the summer of 2018, she was running a PR and brand building company in the health care industry in Nashville when she found out she had breast cancer. Having worked in the healthcare industry for a while, Motley knew the weight of this diagnosis.

“I was very concerned about everything. It was really hard for me to wrap my head around the concept that I could ever have breast cancer. Women in my family live into their hundreds. I was just so healthy, eating all the right stuff, so it was really hard for me to comprehend,” Motley said.

She didn’t let it stop her from living, despite the fear. In fact, she wanted to make sure other people who experience the same fears have a tool kit to push past them. That’s why she wrote her book, The Fight for My Life: Boxing Through Chemo.

Before getting cancer, Motley was training with Olympic boxing coach Christy Halbert. Motley’s book talks about what she learned in training with Halbert and how it helped her in her battle with cancer.

But she didn’t stop there.

During the month of June, Motley is traveling across the coast of France on a pink electric bike. The bike was designed by American cyclist Greg LeMond, a three-time winner of the Tour de France.

She wants to prove that cancer awareness matters, but also just enjoy making connections with people willing to share their life experiences with her along the way. She met architecture students in Rennes restoring an old home with local carpenters. She had lunch with a family in Pornic who shared pictures of the Holocaust survivors in their family.

“It’s been those kinds of touch points every single day with people that have been very meaningful and so cool,” Motley said.

Saturday June 17, her husband John joined her on her journey. They will finish the bike tour together. Alongside all her conversations, there is the hope that women who go through breast cancer can see her story and be inspired.

“When you get breast cancer, you go, ‘okay, am I going to close my business? Is my husband going to love me? How am I going to look with no hair?'” Motley said. “When a doctor tells you all the side effects… you really start to no longer see your life as you had anticipated and hoped for. What I want other women to know is that if I can do this, they can do this too, and to go for their dreams.”

The end of her tour is on June 28 in Hendaye, France. If you want to follow along with Motley on her journey, you can follow her on Instagram.