Thirteen years ago, Annette Bertelsen's longest bike ride had been to Stewartsville, Mo.

Then, just for the challenge, the now 41-year-old St. Joseph woman decided to do Kansas City's 150-mile Bike MS ride. And from that point on she was hooked, not only by the experience but by the cause. Ms. Bertelsen will ride in her 14th Bike MS on Sept. 26 and 27, and she doesn't plan to stop this streak any time soon.

"I am trying to ride all 50 states in my lifetime," she says, adding that so far, she's taken part in Bike MS in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Kentucky and Colorado.

She collects pledges for each ride, setting a goal for herself to ask three people a day to contribute, and she usually raises between $500 and $1,500 for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Money raised by Bike MS goes toward programs to help people with multiple sclerosis and toward research to find a cure for MS, which is a debilitating disease that interrupts the flow of information between the brain and the body, thereby stopping people from moving.

Having had a co-worker with MS who, on bad days, couldn't even get out of bed, the ability to bike means even more to Ms. Bertelsen. She and the approximately 40 others on her Bike MS team, the Joetown Jammers, will set out in September from Peculiar, Mo., and ride to Sedalia, Mo., and back. For the St. Joseph riders, the first day of riding usually ends with a cookout, some drinks and playing frisbee and football.

These times are memorable for Ms. Bertelsen, and so is the second day of one of her Kansas City rides, when the threat of rain and not having a jacket almost kept her from riding. Overhearing her telling a friend her plans to sit out the last day of the ride, a women with MS offered Ms. Bertelsen her jacket - insisting that since Ms. Bertelsen was riding to help her, she wanted her to wear it.

"I did wear it and met her at the finish line," Ms. Bertelsen says. "It was just moving for me for her to have done that."

Lifestyles reporter Erin Wisdom can be reached at ewisdom@npgco.com.