Riders put mettle to the pedal to honor military

By DAN POMPILI

TheNewsOutlet.org

The Sea to Shining Sea Bike Ride will make stops in eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania next week, bringing a local hero with it.

The goal of the ride is to honor the courage of servicemen and women, recognize the strength of the American spirit and challenge perceptions of how Americans view athletes, according to the organization’s website.

One of the 17 cyclists will be Marc Esposito, 26, a Boardman native now living in North Carolina.

Esposito was working as a combat controller for the Air Force Special Operations division in Afghanistan when his unit fell victim to an improvised-explosive-device attack that left him with two broken legs, a broken back and several missing teeth.

Esposito was partially on fire when a medic found him.

Esposito spent four months recovering at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., before he was moved to The Center for Intrepid in San Antonio, Texas, a rehabilitation facility to treat amputees and burn victims.

It was in San Antonio when he learned of the Sea to Shining Sea Bike Ride, sponsored by State Farm Insurance and World T.E.A.M. Sports.

All of the 17 cyclists are disabled. Many of them are wounded soldiers still regaining the use of their legs, some without that use at all.

Esposito says he hopes the ride will help Americans to think like he does and never simply accept the expectations, a value he says he learned in the military.

“We hope it’s a contagious kind of thing,” he said.

The trip stretches nearly 4,000 miles. It began in San Francisco on May 22 and will end in Virginia Beach on July 24.

It spans 50 cities, 43 of which it will have crossed before reaching Steubenville and Weirton, W.Va, on Tuesday.

The riders will reach Pittsburgh on Wednesday, where they could rendezvous with some former Pittsburgh Steelers.

For more information on the ride, go to the website www.S2SSbikeride.org.

The NewsOutlet is a joint media venture by student and professional journalists and is a collaboration of Youngstown State University, WYSU radio and The Vindicator.