Fair Haven Cyclist's Cross Country Ride

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Fair Haven’s Dave Corydon is back home following an extraordinary solo bike ride across the country to raise awareness and money for childhood cancer.
Corydon, 60, started his journey on April 16 at Sandy Hook and rode straight through to Anacortes, Washington, arriving on June 20. He pedaled for a total of 5,000 miles in 66 days and raised more than $4,000 for the Be Positive Foundation.
It was the second time he rode cross-country for the cause, which was founded by his colleague at JP Morgan Chase, Joe McDonough, who lost his 14-year-old son, Andrew, to leukemia in 2007. The McDonoughs created the Be Positive Foundation – an organization whose goal is to fight childhood cancer. Andrew’s blood type, “B+” is their slogan.
“I was deeply saddened when I came to learn what he was facing,” said Corydon, recalling the tragedy. “The passing of any child is just gut-wrenching.” He felt compelled to help in some way, and in 2007 he chose to ride a bike from Oregon to Delaware, finishing his ride at Andrew’s school – the Salesianum School in Wilmington, to help the charity. This year he wanted to travel back the opposite way, on a red recumbent bike, gathering signatures on the windshield, and giving inter views along the way.

“Whatever I can do to shine a light on Joe and Be Positive, I will do,” he said.
During his 7-week trip along the highways, passing a few coyotes in Mississippi and zipping through Glacier National Park in Montana, he traveled all alone with nothing more than some extra clothing and his cellphone. No cars following, no cameras. “I don’t feel too nervous about being by myself.” But he added, “I don’t like being too remote.”
If he got lost, he simply waited to flag down the next car or person that came along.
“I was completely lost in downtown Stillwater, Minnesota,” Corydon said. “That’s when someone walked up to me and was so passionate about what I was doing. He said ‘Let me help you’ and told me exactly where I needed to go to get back on track. It’s those types of memories that are special.”
As for the physical pain of traveling so far, Corydon said if you can ride two “centuries” (one century being 100 miles) back-to-back – and can get on a bike the next day, you are physically able to ride across the states. It’s the emotional side that can be harder to overcome.
“When you’re out there by yourself against 30 mph winds, at that point it isn’t just physical anymore,” he said with a laugh. “But you have to be able to push through.” His plan of attack on each day consisted of a map with his route, but also a continual balance of three things – the area’s geography, nearby places to stay and most of all, the weather. Mother Nature can be a deciding factor of whether a biker can string out for over 100 miles in a day or
have to cut back to only 40.
“I don’t mind riding in rain, hills or wind,” Corydon said. “But when you combine two or three of those it becomes dangerous. The constant balance will determine what your daily goal is.”
Especially when you’re riding to support such a great cause as Corydon was. He explained that even though the West Texas desert heat and the hills and high traffic of Connecticut can be menacing, they seem like small potatoes compared to the hardships of the McDonoughs and other families like them.
“He made a huge public statement by doing this ride,” said Joe McDonough, the president of the Be Positive Foundation. “He could have just written a check and we would have been so thankful. But not only did he raise the money, he also got the word out about Be Positive to people all over the country.”
“Dave is like the ripple in the pond,” McDonough said. “He’s always talking to people and teaching them about childhood cancer – we will never truly know the full effect of what he has done for us.”
When Corydon finished his ride, his wife, Lesley, was waiting for him in Washington to congratulate him on his accomplishment – and to burn the few sets of clothing he had only washed a couple times ever y few hundreds of miles.
The foundation has made great strides in the support of childhood cancer research and the families who are suffering because of the disease. They have aided institutions such as the Seattle Children’s Hospital, the Dana Farber/ Harvard Medical Center and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
In addition, Be Positive has helped fund the financial medical situations of thousands of families in over 240 U.S. hospitals. Most parents would shut down from the world after such a heartbreaking instance. But Joe McDonough persevered and turned his personal loss into a miracle for many.
“Knowing I had a par t in it,” Corydon said, “that’s what makes me proud.”
After his long journey and the massive help he has been, Corydon stays humble and wants to emphasize that the most important thing is Joe and his foundation.
“Joe McDonough and Be Positive, that’s the real story,” Corydon said. “I’m just a bike rider.”
– By Connor White with photos by Tina Colella