By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
When Phil Cooper set out on a cross-country bicycle ride to raise money to combat multiple sclerosis, he knew the money would help make a difference for those who suffer from the life-altering disease.
What Mr. Cooper did not know is that the 62-day trip would alter his life in ways that he could not have imagined when he and the 17 bicyclists on the “Ride the US for MS” tour wheeled their bicycles onto the asphalt June 1.
The owner of Cooper Pest Solutions on Lawrence Station Road, Mr. Cooper said the most important lessons he learned are that “simple is good,” and that “if you can’t fit something into your cubby, then you probably don’t need it.”
The “cubby” is a 30-inch by 30-inch by 18-inch space, which was all that each “Ride the US for MS” participants had for their possessions on the trip clothing, tents and whatever else they chose to bring along and store on the support vehicle that accompanied them.
The two-month-long trip was the culmination of a goal that Mr. Cooper had set for himself when he graduated from college. He wanted to ride his bicycle across the United States.
But life got in the way, and Mr. Cooper had to defer the ride. He vowed, however, to make the cross-country trek when he turned 50 years old.
Mr. Cooper made good on his pledge he reached the landmark birthday in July and returned earlier this month from the ride that raised money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. He has raised $38,000 so far, and hopes to reach his goal of $50,000.
At around age 30, he discovered the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and its Delaware Valley chapter, which sponsors an annual two-day “City to the Shore Ride” that begins in Cherry Hill and ends in Atlantic City.
Conquering MS has become a passion for Mr. Cooper, who said he knows many people who suffer from the disease. That’s why he has participated every year for the past 20 years in the “City to the Shore” fundraising ride, raising close to $250,000.
He was surfing the Internet last summer when he came across “Bike the US for MS,” which is an independent group that sponsors cross-country bicycle rides.
Mr. Cooper reached out to the organization and signed up to ride from Yorktown, Va., to San Francisco, Calif.
While the 17 bicyclists traveled light, fitting all of their possessions for the trip inside the cubby on the team’s support vehicle, Mr. Cooper traveled “heavy.” He arranged for his own recreational vehicle, or RV, to serve as his personal support vehicle.
Mr. Cooper was going to ride his bicycle with the group, but he was not going to cram all of his possessions into a cubby, nor was he going to sleep in a tent on the ground as they did. Besides, he was going to have guest riders friends accompanying the group on several legs of the ride.
”This (trip) was going to raise money for MS and raise awareness about MS, but the second part of it was a celebration of life. My 50th birthday was in the middle of the ride. I thought it would be really cool for my friends (across the U.S.) to join in sharing the 60-day party with me,” he said.
Mr. Cooper and his teammates who ranged in age from 22 or 23 years old to 60 set off on the trip, bicycling about 70 miles per day. While the teammates slept in their tents, Mr. Cooper slept in his RV. He was accompanied by his driver, Dylan Krieger.
While Mr. Cooper chose to sleep in the RV rather than in a tent, he made certain to share the RV with his teammates. It served as an extra charging station for their cell phones and electronic devices, and they could use the bathroom in the RV. Sometimes, Mr. Krieger was sent to the grocery store to buy supplies for the team.
”The RV was there to make their life and my life easier,” Mr. Cooper said.
But Mr. Cooper said he was not always happy with the RV. He looked at his teammates and began to wonder what it would be like to just sleep in a tent.
A few days into the trip, the bicyclists reached Hodgenville, Ky., which is the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln. That was the day that Mr. Cooper decided to try out sleeping in a tent. But as soon as he had set up his tent, a storm unleashed torrents of rain.
”I didn’t ‘tent’ for 10 days,” he said. And when he did set up a tent for a second try, it rained again. It was back to the RV for good until it began to experience problems, such as a broken air conditioning system in the middle of a streak of 100-degree days.
Mr. Cooper sent the RV and his driver to a repair facility in Arkansas. Anticipating that it would take a couple of days for the RV to be repaired and that he would have to camp out as the team continued to travel westward, he took enough clothing and items for a couple of days.
”The RV was fixed the same day (that it was sent to the repair shop), but I decided to sleep in a tent not for fun, but because I wanted to. It was at that moment that I left the RV for good,” Mr. Cooper said.
He admitted that it took a couple of weeks to figure out what to take and how to stuff it into his own 30-inch by 30-inch by 18-inch cubby on the “Bike the US for MS” support vehicle. The teammates had months to plan what to take, because everything including their tents had to fit into that space.
But that was not the only “aha” moment on the trip. As the group approached the end of the trip, one of his teammates turned to Mr. Cooper and asked him whether he had any problems. Mr. Cooper thought about it and replied that he did not he has a good family, a good company and that he works with “some really great people.”
”I love what I do and I want for nothing. He looked at me and said, ‘We didn’t think so.’ (Some of the team) was searching for something. I was searching for nothing, but I was transforming. They did it for a reason they were looking for something and I was looking for a good time and doing it for the sake of doing it (while raising money for MS),” Mr. Cooper said.
The occasional “break day” also helped to put things in perspective, Mr. Cooper said. The team would stop at pre-selected locations and help MS sufferers with chores that might seem mundane to the able-bodied, but which they could not accomplish, he said.
”We helped them with housework or yard work. They were grateful. They didn’t know what to do. We had the easy job. We were riding our bicycles. They had MS,” he said.
And a brief conversation with a waitress at a restaurant in Boulder, Nev., made things a little clearer for him, he said. She had grown up in the small town, graduated from high school in a class of nine one of the biggest high school classes in a long time and returned home after attending Brigham Young University.
It was the simplicity of life in the small town that drew her back home. The nearest grocery store was about 100 miles away, and people took turns driving to it with a shopping list for themselves and others. If the restaurant ran out of an ingredient for a menu item, that item was taken off the menu, he said.
And that was the real take-home lesson from the trip simplicity is good, he said.
”I want my cubby,” he said.
