(REHOBOTH BEACH, Del.) - Bicyclists roll up to the Del-Tech Terry Campus in Dover before sunrise getting ready to ride all the way to the Rehoboth Bay. It's all for the 35th annual Bike to the Bay, one of 70 recreational biking events in the country that raises money for the National MS Society.
President of the National MS Society's Greater Delaware Valley Chapter, Kevin Moffitt explains, "MS is a disease of the central nervous system. What it does is it short-circuits the system and so the messages that would normally be relayed from the brain to the rest of your body would be scrambled and it can cause everything from tingling in your hands to difficulty walking or seeing."
Around one-million Americans have MS and roughly 800 bikers are cycling towards a million dollar fundraising goal that will go towards research and treatment.
Tom O'Brien has raised almost $12,000. "It's my 16th year and I started it because my mom was diagnosed with MS 16 or so years ago and I got to know the MS Society, all the good they do through the research, all the services for people with MS, and each year I've learned more and there have been more cures, there's been more treatments," says O'Brien.
Top fundraiser Jennifer Archie has raised a little over $50,000. "I have a very strong connection with Multiple Sclerosis in that my husband Tim who's honor we ride in had primary progressive MS for 20 years and last year we rode in his honor and he was here with us and kind of surprisingly he passed away in March," says Archie.
This is Marc Broadnax's 58th bike MS event. He's on the board of directors for National MS Society's Greater Delaware Valley Chapter and he's the captain of Team Comcast. "My wife's got MS so every time I ride and I think of how much pain I'm in trying to finish, I just think of her and how much pain she's in and it motivates me to go on," says Broadnax.
Bicyclists both recreational and competitive are joining the cause whether they know someone with MS or not. "I wasn't even a biker in '94 when I started and where I work, an email came around saying they were looking for some people so I said 'I can do that'. I borrowed a bike, road 200 miles beforehand, road down, and decided this is something I can do to help the people," says Dan Connolly of Team Cowbell.
Those leaving form Del-Tech in Dover are on either a 75 or 100-mile course. A 50-mile option takes off at Lake Forest Elementary in Felton and a 25-mile route begins at Uncle Ted's in Milton. All starting points lead to the same finish line in the Delaware Seashore State Park.
