Jon Crisman’s upcoming bicycle ride will take him more than 3,000 miles across eight states over 53 days.
Pretty good for a guy who was told he’d never use his legs again.
Crisman will pedal across the country for a Bike the U.S. for MS fundraiser that begins Sept. 7 in San Diego and ends Oct. 29 in St. Augustine, Fla. He’ll be part of a 16-member team that will face a wide variety of terrain, vegetation and climate all the way across the nation from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
Jon Crisman will ride from San Diego to St. Augustine, Fla. to raise money for multiple sclerosis research.
“Nothing to it,” he joked, noting his training mileage isn’t where he’d like it to be just yet.
Bike the U.S. for MS organizes cross country bike trips that raise awareness for multiple sclerosis research. Along the way, riders help with volunteer projects for people with MS. Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, often disabling disease that attacks the central nervous system — the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves. Symptoms may be mild, such as numbness in the limbs, or severe, such as paralysis or loss of vision, according to Bike the U.S. for MS.
That Crisman is able to ride at all is a miracle.
In 1978, at age 18, he was critically injured in a car accident during a cross-country drive to a photography convention.
“I thought I could drive straight through to California without stopping,” he said.
In a rollover crash in Wyoming, Crisman was thrown from his vehicle.
“I was found lying in the desert 60 miles from the nearest town. My back was broken in six places.”
He spent a month in a Wyoming hospital, paralyzed from the waist down. Once back in Waterloo, he spent months in a spinal cord rehabilitation unit at the former Schoitz Hospital on Kimball and Ridgeway avenues.
“I was in a wheelchair for six months,” he said.
He slowly regained most of the feeling in his legs through intense therapy that included lots of time on a stationary bike. Now, at age 59 and a retired auctioneer, his left leg remains paralyzed from the knee down. It hasn’t slowed his roll.
“When I’m on a bicycle I feel more like a normal person,” he said. “When I’m walking I’m conscious of every step I take. On a bicycle I don’t feel that way.”
Crisman and his fundraiser group will rough it along the route.
“The camping out every night and cooking my own meals, that’s the hard part,” he said, laughing.
He hopes to raise $10,000 for MS research. Those interested in donating to Crisman’s effort can do so at www.biketheusforms.org. Donations are tax-deductible.