What Biking for Better Odds is About
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.”
St. Augustine
Biking for Better Odds seeks to raise awareness of and raise money for Never Too Weak to Wander, a registered 501(c)(3), that exists to help people with Multiple Sclerosis read more than one page.
Biking for Better Odds
Biking for Better Odds plans on kicking off in spring 2010. The goal? For Never Too Weak to Wander founder Dina Mishev to ride 10,400 miles by spring 2011. That’s one mile for every American diagnosed with MS during that year. (Approximately 10,400 Americans are diagnosed with MS every year.)
During her 10,400-mile quest, Dina Mishev, Never Too Weak to Wander’s founder, a competitive road cyclist and the holder of the world record for the most vertical feet skied uphill in 24 hours by a woman, plans on hitting each of the 50 states, doing races, fun rides, organized cycling tours, and BikeMS rides.
Biking for Better Odds’ itinerary is far from set, so Dina welcomes suggestions and invitations to ride and speak about living with MS, the benefits of MS therapies, and managing MS symptoms in the U.S. and abroad. Until www.bikingforbetterodds.org is up and running – which, knowing Dina’s non-existent experience with creating a website will be longer than she hopes, you can reach Dina at dmishev@gmail.com.
The final 3,600-miles of Biking for Better Odds will be an east-west all-in-one-shot ride across the U.S. (And by “all-in-one-shot” Dina doesn’t mean that she won’t stop to sleep and eat, but that the ride won’t be broken up with any extended breaks or trips home to Wyoming.)
Dina’s and Biking for Better Odds’ supporters include Fitzgerald’s Bicycles, Zipp, Athleta and lots of fantabulous, generous, and overall awesome individuals and companies to come.
About Never Too Weak to Wander
Travel isn’t a necessity. Only thirty-percent of Americans have passports and 20-percent of us only take a vacation once every six years (although an equal number of us do take at least two vacations a year). There has yet to be a recorded death due to not seeing the Great Wall. Or from not ripping into a loaf of steaming sourdough while gawping at the Golden Gate Bridge. And no one has died because they haven’t stood beneath the Eiffel Tower suffering a crick in the neck to see up into its stubbornly intricate steel framework.
But neither is travel a luxury. Study after study has shown that travel – taking a vacation – is good for both physical and mental health. People who take vacations are less depressed than those who don’t. They also have less incidence of heart disease. Women who travel are more satisfied with their marriages. On a less quantitative level, travel not only teaches about the larger world, but also provides a connection to it. And that’s just talking about the general population. For people who are chronically ill – let’s say the 400,000 Americans with Multiple Sclerosis, an incurable, unpredictable, degenerative disease that targets the central nervous system – travel does even more, making them a part of a world they often think is no longer accessible.
Never Too Weak to Wander exists to financially and logistically assist long-time and first-time travelers with MS see and experience the world. Never Too Weak to Wander works with each of its travel scholarship recipients to plan a trip that considers both their MS and their travel dreams.
To learn more about the scholarship process or apply for an Never Too Weak to Wander scholarship, go to www.nevertooweaktowander.org (once the page is up, which, as of November 5, 2008 it is not). Never Too Weak to Wander hopes to grant its first scholarships for MS-friendly trips it has planned in early summer 2011.
About MS
The only thing predictable about Multiple Sclerosis is its unpredictability. Although the cause of MS and a cure remain elusive, it is thought to be an autoimmune disorder. MS attacks the myelin that protects the optic nerves and the nerves in the brain and spinal cord, resulting in unprotected spots and scarred areas – called lesions — along a nerve. These scarred nerves are no longer able to properly conduct impulses, affecting the body’s ability to perform and function. For some people, these effects are permanent; for others, they eventually go away, sometimes completely, other times only partly. MS can strike anyone at any age. It does affect women more often than men and most people are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50 however. MS is blind to race, religion and economic group. It doesn’t seem to care what you eat and definitely doesn’t care about what TV shows you watch, where you want you travel, or what kind of car you drive. MS is indiscriminate with its devastation.
About Dina Mishev
Dina Mishev has been living and writing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming since 1997. A graduate of Northwestern University with degrees in Math and Economics, Dina moved to Wyoming for a year immediately following college. The plan was to learn how to ski and then return to law school on the East Coast the following fall. The latter part of that plan was thrown out the window within two weeks of her arrival in Jackson. The former part remains a work in progress. When snow is in short supply, Dina races her road bike, climbs, hikes, explores her adopted state via motorcycle, and makes cookie dough.
Dina was diagnosed with MS in June 2006 after four years of random-but-short spells of vertigo and blurry vision. Dina has experienced ups and downs, but today is as able to be as active as she ever has been, traveling around the world and competing in the same sports she always has. Her writing about travel, sports, adventure, gear, art, people, and lifestyle topics has appeared in National Geographic Traveler, Sunset, AAA Via, Outside, National Geographic Adventure, The Chicago Tribune, Cooking Light, NWA World Traveler, and United Hemispheres as well as on the websites of and in the official Visitors’ Guides for Wyoming Tourism and Arizona Guide. Her first book, Wyoming Curiosities, was published by Globe Pequot in June 2007. You will be able to follow her Biking for Better Odds odyssey at www.bikingforbetterodds.org … but again, not until she’s gotten that site up and running.
