Meet The Team: Spinner

NAME: David Henry Jr.
RIDE ATAXIA ALIAS: Spinner
AGE: 43
RIDE ATAXIA ROLE: Cyclist
DAY JOB: Part-time front desk at Solana Health Club in West Lake, Texas (near the DWF airport)
CYCLING EXPERIENCE: It's my main transportation since I sold my truck last August, I rode with Kyle 400 miles of Ride Ataxia I
TRAINING PLANS: Like Tess, as much time in the seat as possible! In my cross-training I'll stick with just yoga (2-3 times per week) and Pilate's (with a personal trainer), a little weight-lifting (no free weights for me, machines please!), I love to swim ( OK - I walk more than I swim, at least I'm in there). Jogging, skiing & Basket-ball are not my thing, but a few hours per week on the stair-climber, elliptical, octane trainer and upper-body bike works for me.
LONGEST RIDE IN A DAY: I don't know - 75 miles?
TYPE OF ATAXIA: Undiagnosed

DAVID'S STORY:
FLASHING RED LIGHTS behind me - it was a Friday night, but I never touch the stuff. However; spending a night behind bars on a suspicion of DWI was the just eye opener I needed to convince me to go see a Dr. and see why I couldn't walk a straight line. The first was my Dads interest, he wasn't sure but came up with the diagnoses of cerebellar ataxia. He encouraged me to see a neurologist and confirm his diagnoses. Just so happens a good friend of our family is a neurologist and in a couple months I got on with. He knew moments after he saw me that I had a form of ataxia, some test were done to see if I had a curable type, no simple solutions were found, but I wasn't going to die from this either!

My 35 year old body was getting ... soft, so I had started a work-out routine. The harder I worked out, the easier it was for me to 'deal' with 'all' my symptoms (a couple of days/hours later depending on what I did). So I Bumped my workouts up a notch or two - if it was hard for me to do, I did MORE of that! I added Pilate's mat classes, they were a big challenge, but they seem to do me the most good.

A N.A.F member 'gave' me his older model trike - a Delta style Comfort Cycle. After a couple of years and many miles I have passed it on to anther in the North Texas Ataxia support group and have another recumbent trike. Green Speed GT5, in the two+ years I've had it, it's had three sets of tries, countless batteries (for the lights) and many different safety flags so you know it's get plenty of miles put on it. I've not let up on my work outs, I may have actually bumped them up again, I just get more of my cardio riding the 3,000-4,000 miles per year on the trike. During last years Ride Ataxia with Kyle, Mike and Steve my schedule allowed 400 miles, this year I plan to go the full 600+ miles with the team - it's going to be fun, but the best part by far is all the Awareness Ride Ataxia II is bringing to ataxia.