Columnist Susan Snyder: On a bike, Bradford finds relief

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 | 8:34 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

Lauriann Bradford won't turn the first pedal stroke on her cross-country bicycle trip until next summer, but her journey began years ago.

She overcame an abusive childhood, extracted herself from a bad marriage and has learned to live with fibromaylgia syndrome (FMS), which is a musculoskeletal condition that causes widespread pain without warning and has no known cause or cure.

And her bicycle, she said, has given her the courage and calm to persevere.

"Any day I can get on my bike is a good day," said the 43-year-old stay-at-home mom of three. "The bike has just kind of been like therapy. It has spiritual qualities for me."

Bradford bought her first bicycle as an adult about 12 years ago and used it to commute to and from her job at the Barbary Coast. She also was working part-time for Mercy ambulance.

"I wanted to get on full time with the fire department. So the commute was my training. It was something I could fit in as a single mom," Bradford said.

But fate had other plans. She passed the fire department's written examination in 1991 and discovered she was pregnant with her third child, Ian, before she could do the physical test.

"I went on again, off again with the bike. It wasn't anything serious," she said, describing the riding of the early post-Ian era. "I'd put him on the back of the bike."

She suffered severe whiplash in a 1995 car crash, and the fibromyalgia appeared during her recovery. She was a dealer at Treasure Island at the time. But it was hard to even get to work some days, let alone ride her bicycle.

Her shoulders, hips and knees hurt. She felt sick all of the time. She couldn't sleep and suffered chronic fatigue and depression.

"Everything seems worse when you can't do what you're used to doing," Bradford said. "Sometimes in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep, would get on my bike and ride up the (Sunrise) mountain, just to see that I still could."

She had married Craig Friedberg, a consumer rights attorney, and began home-schooling Ian. But the illness would not abate.

In 2002 she said, "Enough."

"I was looking at my NordicTrack clothes hanger, and contemplating another summer of not being able to do anything," Bradford said. "And I decided to take my life back."

She hooked up with some friends who were training for the March 2003 MS150 bicycle ride, which raises money for multiple sclerosis research. And she got back on her bike.

"I found out the hardest part about exercising seems to be changing your clothes," she said.

But the harder things seemed to get easier. She felt better. She slept better. She felt like eating. She had energy again.

Bradford coaxed Ian, then 10, and her teenage daughter Cole to join her on rides. Pretty soon, she and another home-schooling mom were taking a small group of mothers and children on neighborhood rides.

And Bradford came up with the idea for what she calls "The Great Journey." She, Ian and Cole would ride from Middleboro, Mass., her hometown, to Las Vegas.

Middleboro represents all that she was, while Las Vegas represents the woman she has become and the future to which she embraces with glee.

"It's symbolic for me to start where I was born and leave the past behind," she said. "I'm at the other end of the tunnel now. I have worked really hard on having a positive attitude."

Among other things. Bradford also changed her diet to a raw, vegetarian one. And don't even think about asking her to postpone or skip her 6 a.m. training rides.

Bradford no longer adjusts her needs to meet everyone else's. She figures she can do better for her family if she takes good care of herself first.

"I am very firm about my bike riding and my bedtime," she said.

She has obtained maps for her bicycle odyssey from a nonprofit group called Adventure Cycling, which has mapped all of the United States for bicycle riders.

She is now in the throes of finding sponsors to help pay for it. InnerLight Inc., a company that sells a line of natural products that Bradford uses, is the first major sponsor to sign on so far.

Then she has to figure out which bikes they will ride and whether to pack their gear in bags that hang on the bicycles or in trailers pulled behind.

And, of course, she has to keep increasing the numbers of miles she and Ian are doing. Right now they ride in the neighborhood of 30 miles on their long rides. Other jaunts are devoted to climbing hills or improving speed. She figures 50 miles a day ought to cover the country just fine.

No matter what happens, she now knows the road to a better life starts with setting a few priorities.

"You need to eat well. You need to exercise. Attitude is everything," Bradford said. "You need fun."

And a bicycle is a pretty good place to find that.