Ohio Residents Lend Old-Fashioned Helping Hands

Capt. Mark Waddington is nearing completion of his cross country bike ride from Long Beach, California to Long Beach, New York. Waddington, known to his friends as “Snark”, left his home city by bicycle to see the country slowly and raise money and awareness for the Alzheimer’s Association.

At the time of this writing Waddington has ridden for 65 days and hopes to complete his trip by October 24, 2015. He is currently somewhere in Pennsylvania.

Along the way Waddington has traversed, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. He is now crossing Pennsylvania and plans to be in Harrisburg by October 13, 2015, and Philadelphia by October 17. He will reach New York, by way of New Jersey, on October 22, 2015.

This trip has brought many wonderful strangers into Waddington’s life. Just outside of Lisbon, Ohio, his bike completely broke. He called Wayne Wallace at bike shop Lisbon Rail to Trail that he had visited earlier that same day. Mr. Wallace drove 14 miles to pick him up and took one look at his bike and knew he couldn’t help. Although they are the largest Catrike shop in the world, their specialty did not provide them with the parts that Waddington needed.

“Well, I just knew if he had to wait for the parts he would have been here three days, so I called all the bike shops in the area and finally found one fifty miles away in Warren, Ohio,” said Mr. Wallace. “But that’s just what we do, when people need help.”

“I took him another 50 miles north to Thumm’s Bike and Clock shop, hoping they could help,” says Wallace. “Everyone in that shop went to work immediately.”

“Thumm’s crew leaped on my bike like they were in the pit at a NASCAR Race,” says Waddington. They fixed his bike up with a new cassette, shifting cables, rear brake pads, rear derailer, and a drop down – “A miracle they even had that in stock!” said Waddington. “They also trued my back wheel and filled both wheels with Nitrogen. Who even knew that was a thing? Apparently you lose 5-10 psi of air to unavoidable seepage every day. But nitrogen is a bigger atom so it seeps slower. So what I thought would be a two or three day delay is done already!”

The photo above includes left to right Greg Shupienis, Chris Gregory and Augie Thumm – 3rd generation owner of the store. They donated their labor and gave Waddington a discount on the parts. “We bike guys have to stick together,” said Thumm.

Mark Waddington will finish his ride soon by dipping his tires in the Atlantic Ocean 3,500 miles after having dipped them in the Pacific Ocean.

He has been using two new ways to raise money for Alzheimer’s. Crowdrise.com

and charitymiles.org. He has also been regularly posting on his Facebook page. To make a contribution toward this effort, visit https://www.crowdrise.com/mrsnarkswildrideforalzheimers.