CONNEAUT — For the fifth year, Sarah Cook took a deep breath and started to pedal.
With her thoughts on her journey and her destination 150 miles away in Conneaut, Sarah Cook continued a 15-year family tradition with the two-day, The Escape to the Lake (Erie) Multiple Sclerosis 150 Bike Tour.
Sarah and her parents, Dave and Marcia Cook of West Deer, Pa., coasted down the hill at Conneaut Township Park Sunday afternoon for pizza and an afternoon of fun and athletic achievement.
More than 1,500 other cyclists joined in, some whizzing into the park entrance and others laboring with every last pedal down the home stretch of the bike tour.
The cyclists started Saturday at Moraine State Park near Slippery Rock, Pa. The riders spent Saturday night at Edinboro State University in Edinboro, Pa., then ended their journey in Conneaut Sunday morning.
National MS Society Western Pennsylvania Chapter director of special events Kim Trohaugh said the Pittsburgh-to-Conneaut bike tour raised $1 million to support MS research and patient support programs.
“We have a lot of cyclists that just love to ride,” Trohaugh said. “We have a very well supported route and great teams.”
To ride, participants must raise a minimum of $250, Trohaugh said.
While the Cook family breezed into Conneaut, Steve Miller of Bethel Park, Pa., huffed and puffed his way to the finish line riding a recumbent trike. While it looked like Miller was relaxing his way through the event, he said his reclined position was difficult on the uphill portions of the tour.
“I can’t use my weight to get up hills like other cyclists can, so uphill was tough and slow,” Miller said. “Down hill was great — very fast.”
This was Miller’s first MS bike tour.
“It was great,” he said. “But I wish I had trained more. It was a very tough ride.”
Marcia Cook said she remembers her first year with the tour.
“It was a challenge and we figured it was a good cause,” she said. “But after than first year we realized how important our support is to the MS Society and how much we can help other people by riding.”
Trohaugh said even people who don’t know someone with MS are passionate about the bike tour.
“People rally around other people,” she said. “Whether it is for a family member or a friend or a friend of someone whose life has been touched by someone with MS, the ride is about people supporting other people.”
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