College Park Bicycles Sponsors Charity Cyclist, Former Employee

Most of the time when a cyclist says he’s going to ride across the country to raise money for nonprofits, Charlie Pleisse gets a little cynical.

“Granted, they are raising funds for charity, but they’re using a charity to subsidize their hobby and get a lot of free equipment,” said the general manager from College Park Bicycles.

But when his summer employee, Wade Dauberman, told him about his mission to ride thousands of miles in honor of his father, who passed away from a chronic connective tissue disease, he knew this was different.

“He’s very genuine in his efforts and it’s not a thinly veiled selfish endeavor at all,” Pleisse said, who went on to donate to the Scleroderma Foundation through Dauberman’s fundraising webpage, and helped him prepare for the trek.

provided him with equipment and supplies—some of it donated, some of it he paid or worked for, Pleisse said.

“I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them,” Dauberman said.

A student at the Florida Institute of Technology, Dauberman researched with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt last summer, while working at College Park Bicycles and living at the Leonardtown apartments.

The previous year, Dauberman’s father, James, passed away due to complications from Scleroderma, which causes the skin to harden. Dauberman said the disease affected his father’s intestines and shot his immune system, and he died at 60 from an infection he couldn't fight off.

“If there was more known about [Scleroderma], the outcome could have been better,” Dauberman said.

He decided to ride thousands of miles on his bike to raise awareness of the disease and funds for the Scleroderma Foundation, his bike donning a sign that reads “Cycling Across America for Scleroderma.”

Early Monday afternoon, Dauberman rolled into his stomping grounds from last summer—College Park Bicycles—after riding for 15 days straight and averaging 74 miles a day. He left Melbourne, Florida on May 6, the day after his graduation.

He slept at campsites, friends’ homes, cheap motels, and hosts he found through a touring cyclist website. Once he slept outside of a bed and breakfast, where he raked leaves in return.

In the end, he will have trekked about 1,500 miles from Florida to his home town in central Pennsylvania, hitch hiking twice because of unsafe roads, he said.

Dauberman will continue cycling north and hopes to reach his hometown by May 27, where his family is planning a fundraising celebration at the local community center upon his return.

“I’m not ashamed of this run … I’ve gotten the word out,” Dauberman said, noting that he’s raised $3,500 of his $4,700 goal so far. “I have even more donations that I’ve gotten along the way,” he said.

Dauberman’s original plan was to head west after Pennsylvania and reach Seattle by the end of the summer, but he’s decided to save that for another time. For now, he wants to be home with his family.

“I just want to get there,” he said.

Editor's Note: Under full disclosure, I went to the same high school as Wade, but felt his story was worth sharing with College Park, regardless.