My Aim with ‘Riding With and For Ankylosing Spondylitis’

Exercise is the best known therapy for A.S. My chosen sports over the past three decades, have involved competitive cycling, Ironman triathlon, mountain biking, biathlon and running. I have found that cycling, both road and mountain bike, is not only a passion of mine but will hopefully help slow the progression of A.S. The cycling does relieve the pain, almost as soon as I get of the bike and I feel virtually no pain at all, while riding either discipline.

So now I have chosen cycling as my A.S. exercise for therapy. I would like to not only like it to slow my A.S. progression, but I would like to use my cycling, to help make more people aware of the condition. I would like to motivate other people affected by this condition and show cycling can possibly help them too. I am going to use the training/exercise therapy to help me compete in various forms of cycling events, ‘Riding with and for Ankylosing Spondylitis’. Raising awareness, raising donations for The NASS – National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society, and perhaps one day even a cure.

Through riding events I hope to promote awareness of the AS condition. I will be producing a cycle jersey with the ‘Riding With and For Ankylosing Spondylitis’ logo, along side sponsors and partners logos. I will train, ride events and race wearing the jersey. Hopefully it will be possible to make the cycle jersey available for other sufferers and supporters to wear, to spread awareness for A.S. worldwide, with riders wearing the jersey doing events for their chosen AS charity and raising awareness with other items such as t-shirts, sweatshirts to spread the word. The aim would be to eventually make a world wide cycle club, for riders with AS and supporters. I want to spread the word about cycling and the low impact benefits for sufferers of AS. I have already made a Strava club for ‘Riding With and For Ankylosing Spondylitis’, to help motivate each other.