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Health & Fitness

Little Fingers of MI Bike Tour to Benefit HIBM Research

The upcoming Little Fingers of Michigan bicycle tour will also help raise awareness and funds for HIBM research.

This summer’s six day Little Fingers of Michigan self-supported bicycle camping tour from the Mackinac Bridge to Traverse City to the Leelanau Peninsula to the scenic Sleeping Bear Dunes, led by members and friends of the USA Melting Pot club, will also benefit HIBM research.

Ellen Hodorek’s blog article mentioned this worthy cause. I commend it to your reading if you haven’t already.

Some participants in this tour will be donating to HIBM research or raising awareness through articles like this one.

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HIBM a Boutique Disease

Unlike ALS, brain tumors, and other forms of cancer, which are unfortunately very common, HIBM is so rare that it doesn’t get research funding from the government.

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Friends of Ellen Hodorek’s nephew’s wife Kam, who moved to California from Michigan, organized a Bike for KAM bicycle tour from Los Angeles to San Diego to raise money for research. They’re doing other creative things as well if you follow the links in her article.

Unfortunately, their Youtube video had only around 300 hits when I checked it a month or so after Ellen’s article. You can help spread awareness by watching it now! (and consider donating…)

USA Melting Pot May 30 meeting

My article promoting the meeting was lost during the transition to the new Patch format, but Sreedhar Patil’s presentation on India’s farming methods and mine on bicycle camping are posted on our club website.

Recreational Riders Inspired

Hopefully the May 30 discussion of the Little Fingers of Michigan bike tour inspired people to ride bikes with their families. Some people coming on the trip are experienced riders but others are new to cycle touring.

I’d been riding indoors and reading some good books while riding – two birds with one stone! Others had logged long rides outdoors before the weather got nice.

I haven’t done a bike camping trip since 1984 and was looking forward to riding and camping again in some beautiful Michigan scenery.

I was inspired to try this last summer by a coworker who went on the RAGBRAI organized ride (over 10,000 riders!) across Iowa. He wants to do a self-supported Rail Trail ride in his home state of Missouri.

Unexpected Hiccup

As I mentioned in my earlier blog postI had surgery on June 26 for the second reopening of my January 2004 brain tumor biopsy site. The surgery to clean out infected bone was successful.

After two nights in the hospital, a PICC line was installed and I was given instructions for administrating antibiotics once a day at home.

The antibiotics need refrigeration, so I’ll be driving a Traverse with a cooler and towing a trailer, so others can carry their gear on their bikes or not as they choose.

The biopsy site is still healing and I can’t wear a helmet even for a short ride like the Pierce-Stocking Scenic Drive, so I’ll be taking pictures, hoping to ride the same route with a larger group next year.

More to come…

I’ll hopefully be writing more about this trip later. For now, check out Ellen’s blog post and consider donating to HIBM research.




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