MS Bike Tour Down To The Sound

NORWALK — The 26th annual MS Down to the Sound Bike Tour will take place Sunday, September 16, beginning and ending at Sherwood Island State Park in Westport. The event is designed for cyclists over 8 years of age with varying levels of ability. There are 12-, 30- and 62-mile routes.

For 25 years, the Down to the Sound Bike Tour has been a major event for the Multiple Sclerosis Society, Western Connecticut Chapter. It raises money to beat MS, a chronic, unpredictable disease of the central nervous system that typically strikes people between the ages of 20 and 40. The Norwalk-based Western Connecticut Chapter provides funding for services to Litchfield and Fairfield County families coping with MS and for research to discover treatments and a cure for the disease.

The route is fully marked and staffed with supply and gear (SAG) vehicles, food and rest stops, and bike repair stations.

This year’s MS Down to the Sound Bike Tour is made possible through the generosity of corporate sponsors, including Bunge and Louis Dreyfus (Gold Sponsors), Purdue Pharma (Silver Sponsor), and AJ Gallagher and Local 371, UFCW (Bronze Sponsors), News 12 and Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder (Media Sponsors), SkiMarket, Crystal Rock, Shaw’s, Bobby Valentine’s Sports Gallery Café, Westport Sunrise Rotary, and Gateway Graphics (In-Kind Sponsors).

Anyone who is interested in participating, as a volunteer or cyclist, can find more information by going to the MS Western CT Chapter website, www.msswct.org, or calling 838-1033, option 2.

Multiple sclerosis interrupts the flow of information from the brain to the body and stops people from moving; more than twice as many women as men being diagnosed with the disease. MS affects more than 400,000 people in the United States, and 2.5 million worldwide.