Mainer with glaucoma to bicycle U.S. to raise funds, awareness of eye disease

HOPE – Ron Smith has traveled to Antarctica in a Russian icebreaker, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, and clambered up peaks in Nepal. But the 4,500-mile, cross-country bicycle trip he has set for himself will be his biggest challenge ever, he says.

Smith, 61, who looks as fit as an athlete half his age, is preparing to ride his aluminum Trek bicycle from Seattle, Wash., back to his hometown of Hope this summer to raise funds and create awareness for glaucoma research.

“I like riding a bike,” said Smith at his brother’s motorcycle shop in Hope on Monday. “I do 2,000 to 3,000 miles every summer.”

Smith himself has glaucoma.

He calls the disease “the silent thief of sight” because it can be active without symptoms before loss of vision occurs. The disease can lead to blindness, but with treatment, vision can be preserved, according to Thomas Brunner, president of the Glaucoma Research Foundation, the organization for which Smith is riding.

Smith, a 1964 graduate of Camden High School, is a Vietnam veteran who retired from his job as an electrical instrument technician at the former Champion paper mill in Bucksport 10 years ago. Since his retirement, he has challenged himself at mountain climbing, distance walking and bicycling.

He wears a T-shirt with the inscription, “One Less Car,” across the back, which he says a friend sent him.

Smith is shipping his bicycle from Rockport on Wednesday and plans to fly to Seattle on May 13. He will head out on his continental ride May 15 and expects to complete the 4,500 miles in about 80 days.

“When I get out there, I’ll try not to think of the whole trip ahead of me, but focus on a day at a time of about 50 miles,” he said.

“Of course, no athlete can sustain the kind of effort nonstop, so I’ll take breathers along the way and do other things,” he added.

“I want to get through the Adirondacks by September because they can get very cold then,” he said of the New York mountain range.

Smith will track his ride with frequent additions to a Trip Diary available on GRF’s Web site at www.glaucoma.org, said Carmen Torres from her GRF office in San Francisco.

“People will be able to log on to our Web site and read about Ron as of tonight,” she said Monday.

People also will be able to check on his progress after May 15 and click on a link to make donations for glaucoma research, she said.

GRF’s Web site is also the No. 1 search engine choice for glaucoma and a national model of Internet accessibility for the vision-impaired, Torres said.

gchappell@bangordailynews.net

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