Don’t ever count Bud Schiffman out.

When a doctor told the 95-year-old cyclist that he wasn’t in shape to make the weekend’s BP MS 150 bike ride, he was deeply disappointed. He’d participated in the fundraising trek to Austin for the past three years, and even though he rode a three-wheeled bike and came in last every year, he raised more than $20,000 for multiple sclerosis research.

Also, he made lots of friends.

“We love you, Bud,” riders would call out as they passed him. “You’re my inspiration!”

No worries. This past weekend, Schiffman figured out a way to ride again.

Last Thursday he joined Team Betaseron,a group of people with multiple sclerosis who participate in the annual ride, but on stationary bikes. They maintain the same race schedule and pedal roughly the same distance as the other 13,000 riders, but they do it in the air-conditioned comfort of Texas Orthopedic Hospital on Main.

Being indoors was a huge advantage this year. While ride organizers canceled the first leg of the

trip because of thunderstorms and flooding, Schiffman and Team Betaseron met as planned Saturday morning and rode about 80 miles. Sunday, they did it again. Who’s counting, but Schiffman and the MS patients rode twice as far as their more conventional teammates this weekend.

At the hospital, Schiffman finished about 3 p.m. Sunday — in last place again. He could have gone faster, he said, but he was talking all the way.

Also, he stopped for lunch, which he doesn’t usually do. “It was outstanding,” he said, licking his lips at the memory. “Barbecue.” Schiffman is a transplanted Houstonian. His first 90 years were spent in New York, where he and his wife, Zelda, raised two children and he worked as a furniture manufacturer.

After his wife’s death, he moved here to live with his daughter, neuro-ophthalmologist Jade Schiffman. He learned how to use a computer, and he started working out five days a week at the Weekley Family YMCA, where he is a minor celebrity.

His pals at the YMCA need to hold on to their wallets: Schiffman may have put in his miles, but he has only just begun to raise funds............... story in the chron.com Houston & Texas news