A Florida man is winding up a cross-country bike tour to raise funds for the fight against diabetes just about the same time a Pennsylvania woman is setting off on a cross-country bicycle tour to support breast cancer awareness.
What better way to call attention to an issue than by doing it from the seat of a bicycle. People usually don't feel threatened by someone riding into town on a bicycle. It breaks down barriers and piques curiosity. "Where'd you come from?" "Where are you going?" "How many flats?"
Those are the kind of questions that Ernest Neupert, left, has been getting for 10 months as he's bicycled 8,000 miles on his Cannondale touring bike.
The 65-year-old cyclist left Florida in April on his cross-country bike trip entitled "Uncle Sonny's Bike-A-Thon to Battle Diabetes." His wife, who suffers from Type 2 diabetes, and son accompany him in a van.
A cancer survivor himself, Neupert usually pedals about 50 miles a day before resting up in their vehicle. "I've spent lots of nights in Wal-Mart parking lots."
Newspaper accounts report he's gone through 4 sets of tires and has dropped about 100 pounds; the former construction worker now weighs about 165.
Together with a previous cross-country trip about five years ago to raise money for cancer research, Neupert will have bicycled through every state but Alaska and Hawaii.
"I've seen things other people never get a chance to see," the cyclist told the Daily Times in Salisbury, Maryland, recalling a story about crossing paths with a timber wolf.
Contributions go to Uncle Sonny's Bike-A-thon, c/o American Diabetes Association, 1101 N. Lake Destiny road, Suite 415, Maitland, Fla. 32751.
Barb Jarmoska of Loyalsock Township, near Williamsport, Pennsylvania, is setting off in March from California with 23 other women for a coast-to-coast bike tour. The southern tier route passes through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
The bike trip was organized by WomanTours, a Rochester, New York, outfit that offers various bike tours exclusively for women. The Breast Cancer Fund-raiser requires the women to be 50 or older (Jarmoka just qualifies) and to pay their own way and direct pledges to a cancer organization. She chose Breast Cancer Action based in San Francisco.
Two support vehicles will follow the cyclists, who leave by 6 a.m. and ride 'til 3 p.m. The longest day is 115 miles.
"We'll ride no matter what the weather," she told the Willamsport Sun-Gazette. "There will be days when it's just no fun."
