Michigan’s Wayne Koppa takes us on a 5,800-mile, seven-day, coast-to-coast journey by way of his BMW 650 motorcycle.
Last June, when Wayne Koppa, a Rotarian from Grayling, Mich., announced he was raising money to fight polio by riding his BMW 650 motorcycle from coast to coast, he didn’t mean from the East Coast to the West. He meant the “hard way” – from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Key West, Fla. To complete the 5,800-mile, seven-day journey (though he actually covered 13,170 miles in 20 days, starting and ending the ride in Grayling), he rode 12 to 15 hours each day and went through three sets of tires. His efforts paid off: The retired Michigan National Guardsman raised over $34,000, including an anonymous $15,000 contribution in memory of Bob Gandolfi, a past governor of District 6290 who had passed away the month before. With matching funds from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Koppa’s efforts yielded more than $100,000 for PolioPlus. His district has also come through in a big way: In September, Rotary Charities of Traverse City approved a $250,000 grant to help eradicate the disease.
THE ROTARIAN: What made you decide to do this ride?
KOPPA: Five years ago, I shot off my mouth in a little local pub called Spike’s Keg O’ Nails. I said I could ride my motorcycle round trip from Grayling to Alaska in seven days. This guy at the pub said, “If you can do that, I’ll buy you a fish dinner – the three-piece, not the all-you-can-eat.” Two years ago, I finally did that ride. Before I left, I said to the president of my club, “I should turn this ride into a PolioPlus fundraiser,” and we raised about $3,250. Then last spring, incoming district governor Al Bonney asked me if I had any other rides in mind. I told him about riding coast to coast the hard way, which is on the bucket list for every motorcyclist. He asked if I’d be willing to do it as a fundraiser, and I started laughing, because I knew I would end up doing it.
TR: Can you tell us some tales from the road?
KOPPA: I’d been on the road for about four hours when I stopped for a pasty, which is a hand pie that miners would take to work with them. As I was getting back on my bike, a woman got out of her SUV and said, “You’re the guy riding to Alaska!” She’d read about it in the local paper.
The stretch between Fairbanks and Prudhoe Bay is like the end of the earth. It’s where you cross the Arctic Circle. I stopped at a small national park, and the volunteer saw the End Polio Now sticker on my motorcycle. She said, “My brother had polio.” In northern Minnesota, I stayed at a motel where a woman told me she and her best friend had contracted polio as children. Her friend never walked again.
TR: What other projects are you working on?
KOPPA: Our club sponsors a 100-mile bike ride, the Black Bear Bicycle Tour, every summer. I also help run the AuSable River Canoe Marathon, the longest nonstop canoe race in North America. It’s more than 120 miles long and has a $50,000 purse. And I’m the chair of a local nonmotorized pathway committee. We’ve built about $1.3 million worth of paved bicycle trails. Even though we’re a small community of 2,000, we’ve accomplished big things. – Patty Lamberti