Mediaboss Marketing

By Tiffanie Reynolds Staff Writer

From around the East Tohopekaliga lakefront to Narcoossee Road, Dan Wermuth can be seen coasting all over St. Cloud.

But, he doesnt just bike for his health. He bikes for his life.

The U.S. Navy veteran, police retiree and photographer is a proud member of Ride to Recovery, a nonprofit organization that helps wounded vets recover by participating in local and national bike trips. The organization chose bicycling because its an activity that people of any age and disability can do, and gives veterans the perfect balance of challenge and therapy.

Wermuth met the group about a year ago, when they road through St. Cloud on one of their bigger biking trips. When he asked one of the cyclists how to join, he told Wermuth to get a bike. So he did.

For Wermuth, biking for the first time was like learning to walk again. Growing up in Michigan, biking was his passion, with dreams to bike cross-country after he graduated high school. But, all of that ended in the Navy, when he fell 30 feet from the signal bridge of his fueling tankard to the front deck and broke his back. He was 18 at the time.

When he left the Navy, after the accident, he left his bike on the ship. After marrying and settling in St. Cloud, it took almost 40 years of working through the pain and medication before a supposed heart attack literally stopped him in his tracks. In the hospital, he learned that the collapse was really from diabetes, and Wermuth knew he had to change something.

Thats what started me. I didnt want to be the guy stuck in the wheelchair with no feet, said Wermuth, referring to the loss of feeling in his feet he was also having at the time, a symptom of diabetes.

In the past year, he has ridden more than 7,000 miles and lost 80 pounds. After Ride to Recovery helped him adjust his bike for his back, he started working his way to the bigger biking trips, or challenges, biking across states in only a few days. These trips have peddled him 100.3 miles around Big Sur in California, and pushed him to lead a group of 300 riders from Arlington to the Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, after placing the wreath over the Tomb of the Unknown Solider on Memorial Day.

It was this last trip that also helped him find closure on years of anger from his injury. The pier at the end of the ride was one of many that he hasnt seen since he broke his back in 1974. Riding in, he was saluted by all the sailors, with the granddaughter of a family friend waiting for him at the end. After the ride and the pictures, the base commander walked up to him to thank Wermuth for his service.

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St. Cloud veteran has a passion for peddling in Ride for Recovery