Cyclist rides to beat Parkinson's Disease

Steve Quam has Parkinson's Disease.

The 66-year-old music therapist from Anderson, South Carolina, acknowledges the limitations of the condition, but he's not letting them define him.

Last week, Quam stopped in Sisters on the final leg of a cross-country cycling trek that started last April in Edisto Island, South Carolina and is set to end next weekend in Newport, Oregon.

He reflected on resistance to the ravages of Parkinson's.

"Fatigue is a big part of Parkinson's," he said. "And apathy and lethargy go hand-in-hand with the disease. You tend to become a couch potato. For me, it's been helpful to have my couch 3,400 miles away."

Quam is about as far from being a couch potato as you can get. In fact, this is his second cross-country ride since his diagnosis. The first was two years ago.

"I always had this dream to bicycle across the country," he said. "One of the things that goes with Parkinson's is your balance, so I realized if I didn't set a date on this dream, it wasn't going to happen."

Quam has been forced to acknowledge the progression of his condition.

"It's become very clear to me that I'm not the bicyclist I was two years ago," he said.

He's set a pace of about 30 miles per day. His shortest day was 11 miles and his longest 56. While in Colorado, he visited the Boulder headquarters of the foundation to whom he is dedicating the ride: The Davis Phinney Foundation for Parkinson's (www.davisphinneyfoundation.org).

Davis Phinney is an American cyclist struck at age 40 by early-onset Parkinson's Disease. The philosophy of the foundation is "living well with Parkinson's," an attitude Quam whole-heartedly embraces.

Quam has continued to play music, stubbornly re-teaching himself to play the flute after Parkinson's changed his ability to form his mouth correctly to play.

It's all part of an effort to "celebrate what you can do and don't lament what you can't do," he explained.

Quam's wife, Jeanne, also a music therapist, stayed behind in South Carolina, managing the logistics of the trip so that Quam could focus on keeping the pedals turning. His son Mikkel, who lives in Corvallis, has joined him for parts of the Oregon leg of the trek.

Quam is hauling a bike trailer, which has some family history with Mikkel.

"When he was two weeks old, I took him on a 30-mile bicycle ride in that trailer," Quam recalled.

The lifelong cyclist paused only briefly in Sisters before heading out Highway 20 to climb the Santiam Pass, turning the pedals at a slow and steady pace, and living well with Parkinson's at every rotation.

photo by Jim Cornelius