Today, I rode about 15 miles through the woods of Forest Park.  It was a beautiful winter Portland day; a bit chilly and an awful lot muddy.  The wind whipped through my helmet as I heard the shush-shush sound of tree trunks passing on either side.

When I am feeling down, nothing brings me back faster than the feeling of motion, whether it’s riding my bike, running, or cross country skiing.  But for some of us, that right, that fundamental human right of motion has been taken away.  There are many diseases that affect our ability to move, but one of the most insidious and common is Multiple Sclerosis.  Multiple Sclerosis, or MS, is an autoimmune disease that affects the myelin sheaths that surround our nerves.  It causes difficulty with movement, can affect vision, and ultimately is completely debilitating.  There is no known cure, but there are some promising treatments involving stem cell research.  But those treatments are expensive and research is, too - which is where we come in.

This summer, I will be riding my bicycle 3800 miles across the United States, from Virginia to San Francisco, and I need your help.  You can ride along with me by donating to my cause and to the cause of MS research.  I’m sure you will have questions, and over the next few months, I’ll be striving to answer those questions, but for today I just wanted to announce my ride and get the basic information out there.  If you’d like to donate, you can click on the link below: http://www.biketheusforms.org/cyclists/detail.asp?cid=864

I’ll be posting more about my ride over the coming days and weeks, but this blog will still have lots of other interesting daily tidbits on it as well, so never fear; it won’t take over!