Keith Martin 2002 brings Moving Muscles Ride to SHS

By Richard Wills, Publications Editor

It was the ride of a lifetime. Last summer, Keith Martin 2002 and four university friends biked across Canada to raise money to fight Muscular Dystrophy, a disease that has plagued Keith since he was 14. In 85 days they travelled 7,800 kilometres, from Tofino, B.C. to St John’s, Newfoundland.

Along the way they made countless friends, raised over $157,000 to fight MD, and came home with a story that attracted swarms of media attention, spawned a book, and enthralled the Selwyn House Elementary students who heard Keith’s talk on December 17.

Keith hatched the idea for the “Moving Muscles Ride” with Brian Sprague and Mike McDonald, two schoolmates from the University of British Columbia, where Keith is studying engineering physics. They were joined by Eric Taves and Patrick Cuthbert, two friends attending McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. On May 13, the five dipped their tires in the Pacific Ocean and started off from Tofino.

The first two days of the trip were “a trial by fire,” says Keith. Actually, water. Riding down the Pacific Rim Highway in the pouring rain was torturous. Their first day found them climbing grades that reached 18 per cent, “…on a narrow, winding road with rain pouring down on us, huge trucks whizzing by and our optics completely fogged up.”

After that the rest of the trip seemed all downhill. That is, if you consider climbing 900 metres to reach the 1330-m Rogers Pass in the Rockies to be downhill. Actually, Keith confessed, it was riding across the flat prairies near Medicine Hat, Alberta in a relentless headwind that was the most tiring and discouraging.

In two weeks the “Flying Five” had reached Calgary, travelling with no support vehicle, camping and cooking along the way, fighting insects and breakdowns, and keeping in daily email communication with the folks back home. Kith’s mother, Judy, says the daily emails kept her mind at ease that the boys were safe on the road.

In Thunder Bay the group paused for a photo beside the monument to Terry Fox, whose 1980 cross-country Marathon of Hope set the standard for cross-Canada fundraisers. “It was a thrill to stand in his shadow,” says Keith.

Every stop was a memory for the five cyclists, but some stand out—such as joining 200,000 revelers for the Paul McCartney concert in Quebec City or getting escorted into St John’s Newfoundland at the end of their journey by fire trucks with sirens blaring. Personal highlights would include their arrivals in London, Ontario—home to three of the Flying Five—and Montreal—where Keith’s family hosted a neighbourhood welcome party.

Keith had suspected for years that he had a physical problem, but it was not until 2005 that it was confirmed that he had MD. Obviously, Keith’s symptoms are not as pronounced as they are for some MD sufferers, being mostly confined to his upper body and face. The condition gives him a slightly crooked smile and a bit of a limp.

But, even though there is no cure, his doctors say the best therapy is to keep active. “I’m lucky, as other sufferers are confined to a wheelchair or a bed,” says Keith. “My future with this disease is uncertain, because there is no cure or treatment for it. My hope is that I will be able to, at best, maintain my current lifestyle by constant movement of my muscle groups to avoid further deterioration.”

The disease saps his strength. Before he began the Moving Muscles Ride Keith was afraid he might find it impossible to keep his energy up. As it turned out, being the most experienced cyclist in the group, he found himself playing the role of pace-setter most of the time.

The team set up a website at www.movingmusclesride.ca where they posted daily entries to their blog as the ride progressed. This online journal, along with photos, has now been compiled into a book entitled The Flying Five, which is available in the Wanstall Library.