Team Reeve All-Stars Spotlight: The Segals
By the time Mark and Heather Segal pedaled into North Dakota, they hoped the biggest challenge of their carefully planned 3,900-mile bike ride across the U.S already lay several states behind them.
On the third day of the trip, the couple discovered that wildfires had closed the critical road meant to carry them across Washington state. And so, they’d blown up their map, embracing an unexpected three-day detour and riding more than 200 extra miles to get back on track.
Easy? No. Satisfying? Yes.
But then came the headwinds of North Dakota. This was a problem that could not be solved, only endured.
After three straight days of riding against the wind, Mark raised the cuff of his jacket to reveal a white Team Reeve bracelet around his wrist. He’d worn it every day since 2021, when he and Heather had first set off on what would become an annual and epic fundraising ride across the country to raise money for spinal cord injury research.
On this day, he needed to see the bracelet, to remind himself of the friends he rode in honor of, and their ongoing determination to reclaim lives reshaped by injuries.
“When I pulled it out, that was my motivation,” he says. “I imagined my friends rolling alongside me. I thought about the progress they’ve made and the obstacles they have to face to keep going. And I knew I had to keep going.”
On September 25, 68 days after they set off, the Segals rode the final miles of their journey back home to Larchmont, New York. Arriving on what would’ve been Christopher Reeve’s 72nd birthday, the couple had much to celebrate.
Since 2021, they have ridden from one corner of the country to another for Team Reeve, pedaling close to 12,000 miles and raising nearly $128,000 to fund treatments and cures for spinal cord injury. They’ve survived countless challenges, including severe dehydration in Yuma, Arizona, a precarious ride across a bridge in Alabama during a storm with wind gusts of 40+ mph, and multiple days of bone-chilling rain on the coast of Oregon. They’ve sampled milkshakes and donuts in cities and small towns from Texas to Maine and stood in the shallow headwaters of the Mississippi River in Minnesota.
And, wearing their neon Team Reeve T-shirts every day, the Segals have introduced the work of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation to hundreds of people along the way.
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“Their impact has been remarkable,” says Team Reeve Manager Kelly Lamb. “They are not only prolific fundraisers who push their goals higher every year, but ambassadors who are spreading the word of Reeve’s mission mile by mile across the country.”
The idea to ride for Team Reeve came to the Segals after a close friend of the family sustained a spinal cord injury. The accident occurred during the young man’s first week of college in Miami when a strong wave tossed him upside down into a sandbar, breaking his C6 vertebra. The Segals, who had watched him grow up alongside their own children, were heartbroken.
“It was overwhelming,” Mark says. “You see the randomness of it. That could be any of us. Your heart aches for the family. You just want to do something to help.”
Spinal cord injury was already on their minds. A few years before, an old camp friend of Mark’s had become paralyzed as a result of medical complications. As they thought more and more about the injuries, the Segals realized their cycling could serve a greater purpose.
Their first ride started off in San Diego, California and stretched all the way to St. Augustine, Florida; it lasted 46 days, but the couple was hooked. Over the next four years, the annual rides became central to their lives. Though not every day was easy – see the wildfire story above – the rewards were many, and especially found in the kindness of strangers.
There was the Chick-Fil-A staff who let Mark battle dehydration with a 2-hour nap at a dining room table. There was the truck driver who pulled his 18-wheeler over to share water with the couple on a scorching day. And there was the woman who, upon learning that the couple was riding for spinal cord injury research, peeled $20 from her wallet’s emergency cash fund for an on-the-spot donation.
“We have seen the beauty of the country and the beauty of so many people,” Mark says.
One moment from this summer that neither will soon forget came along the Snoqualmie Valley Trail in Washington when they encountered a cyclist on an adaptive mountain bike. As Mark began to talk about their ride for Team Reeve, the cyclist stopped him; he knew of the foundation through its Quality-of-Life grants that supported local adaptive sports organizations, including the one that made his own ride possible.
“It was a very powerful moment,” Heather says. “I think that while we associate Reeve with scientific advances, there is also an emphasis on the here and now. The National Paralysis Resource Center and the grants program are all about care. And here we are, out on the trail, seeing the direct impact. It felt really good.”
After 68 days on the road, the couple is grateful for the many miles they’ve traveled.
Mark and I feel very blessed to be able to do this,” Heather says. “We are in good health. Our family is in good health. We don’t take any of it for granted. And we are proud and honored to be doing what we’re doing for Reeve.”
For more information about Team Reeve, and to donate in support of the Segals’ epic ride, please visit the Reeve Foundation here.