Tehachapi News

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The sky is the limit for Ride Ataxia II. This ride started in Sacramento, Calif. on March 15 and will end 620 miles later on March 28 in Las Vegas, Nev. at the National Ataxia Foundation (NAF) annual conference.

The Ride Ataxia cycling team led by Kyle Bryant, who is effected by Friedreich's Ataxia, is part of the Ride Ataxia awareness and funding support effort,  a team of about 30 enthusiastic bicycle riders who arrived in Tehachapi March 22 and spent the night resting before continuing on.

David Henry, “Spinner,” who came up the 58, said he “Enjoyed the ride ride from Bakersfield to Tehachapi but I’m probably in the best condition. I had no problem with it and the scenery was great.” Another member of the team, Sean Baunstark, who took Tehachapi- Woodford Road up past the Loop, said, “I don’t know many people with Ataxia that could do it. It was a hard climb, one of the crazyest things I’ve ever done.”

“This year we’re back in the saddle for another epic journey,” Tess Kretschmann, a spokesman for the group said. “Last year we raised $40,000 and with the help of the National Ataxia Foundation (NAF) and the Friedreich's Ataxia Research Alliance (FARA) funded the $100,000 Kyle Bryant Translational Research Award.”

People with ataxia have problems with coordination because parts of the nervous system that control movement and balance are affected. Ataxia may affect the fingers, hands, arms, legs, body, speech, and eye movements.

Ataxia is also used to denote a group of specific degenerative diseases of the nervous system called the hereditary and sporadic ataxias.

Symptoms and time of onset vary according to the type of ataxia. Typically, balance and coordination are affected first. Lack of coordination of  hands, arms, and legs, and slurring of speech are other common symptoms. Walking becomes difficult and is characterized by walking with feet placed further apart to compensate for poor balance.

There is a large group of people who have symptoms of ataxia that usually begin in adulthood and who have no known family history of this disease. This is called sporadic ataxia and it can be difficult to diagnose.

The hereditary ataxias are genetic, which means they are caused by a defect in a certain gene that is present from the start of a person's life.

This  means that Kyle and his cycling pals are clumsy and have terrible balance (that’s why Kyle rides a tricycle, “the trike”).