Valley spokesmen: Duo home after 3,000-mile ride for charity

Duo home after 3,000-mile ride for charity

By HAROLD GWIN

VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER

Fresh back from a 3,000-mile bicycle ride for charity from Youngstown to San Francisco, Scott Finamore says he’s thinking about doing it again next year.

“I might do it in the future again but not anytime soon,” offered Sam Malaska, his riding partner on the adventure.

“It was the most stressful, crazy, awesome vacation you could possibly take,” said Malaska, 19, of Youngstown.

“We’re absolutely thinking about it again next year,” said Finamore, 23, of Poland.

It all started out as a planned trip to visit friends in San Francisco but quickly grew into an event to benefit charity once friends and others began learning about it.

The two young men had hoped to raise as much as $15,000 for Akron Children’s Hospital of the Mahoning Valley to help fund that institution’s charity-care program that provides medical care for children whose families can’t afford it.

In the end, they expect to have raised about one-third of that, though the final count of pledges and contributions hasn’t been completed.

Although they had people back home helping them, it was difficult to do fundraising while on the road, Finamore said of the 51-day journey.

Malaska said they got a lot of e-mails offering encouragement during their trip. People were supporting them, but the charitable donations didn’t follow, he said, adding that was one of the most difficult issues with which they dealt.

The two, who have been riding together for years, said they met some amazing people on the road — from individuals who were on their own extended bicycle tours to those who, after learning their mission, offered help ranging from food and donations to a place to pitch their tent and, even, in some cases, a room to stay overnight in their home.

They set out May 9 from the Mahoning Valley and arrived on scheduled in San Francisco on June 28.

Their biggest problems, aside from some spectacular thunderstorms, were a couple of flat tires, they said. They avoided any serious malfunctions or injury.

“It actually went a lot smoother than I thought it would,” Malaska said.

All the people at home and on the road wishing them well “really made a difference,” he said.

“We’ve been helped by so many strangers,” Finamore said, and that appears to have made a lasting impression on him.

“Doing something for charity is definitely something I’d like to continue to do,” he said, calling the effort “extremely worthwhile.”

Both men admitted they occasionally got “fed up” with each other, but they remained friends, using humor to diffuse the situation.

When they could sense tenseness, they would make jokes about it and laughed, Malaska said.

”We became a stronger team,” Finamore said.

Malaska flew back from California on July 2 to be able to spend July 4 with his girlfriend, and Finamore drove back with friends, hauling their bicycles and trailer (provided by Cycles Sales of Boardman) atop their car.

“I miss him. I really do,” Finamore said in a telephone conversation with The Vindicator during his ride back.

The toughest physical part of the trip? “The Rocky Mountains,” Malaska said without hesitation.

The easiest?

“The flight back,” he said with a laugh.

Donations to the cause can still be made through their Web site at www.califorkids.com. You can also read about their adventure as they lived it and see dozens of photos they took along the way.

gwin@vindy.com