BFAS supporter completes bike ride around perimeter of US to aid homeless pets

Via PRWeb - Six years ago, 67-year-old cyclist and animal lover Floyd Lampart began planning for what most would characterize as not your typical bike ride. This one was a 32-state odyssey that took him around the entire perimeter of the continental United States and into two Canadian provinces.

Eleven thousand five hundred miles later, Lampart’s journey is complete. Lampart arrived home in Lake Clear, N.Y. yesterday and attended a welcome home reception.

Lampart hit the road April 4 from his home in Lake Clear on a trip that he thought would take six months, but which he completed in less than five months.

Milestones included visiting the four most distant geographical points in the continental U.S., including the northernmost point at Angle Inlet, Minn., westernmost point at La Push, Wash., Key West, Fla. in the south and Lubec, Maine in the east.

Lampart took on the challenge to raise funds for Best Friends Animal Society for its new veterinary clinic at its sanctuary near Kanab, Utah. He was successful raising more than $50,000 along the way.

Lampart said he hoped raising the funds would help “enable the clinic to diagnose and investigate illness more quickly so that all the animals in the Society’s care are healthy, happy and ready for their forever homes.”

He and his wife, Martha, are long-time, loyal supporters of Best Friends and they usually visit the Society’s sanctuary in Kanab at least once a year. They have adopted five dogs from Best Friends in the past seven years, and Martha says she tries to keep Floyd away from the Old Friends area of the sanctuary because he always finds another dog that “needs him”.

That is exactly what happened on the ride. Lampart now has a new family member named Fuzzy, a dog he rescued back in July from the side of the road in El Centro, Calif. After weeks in the shelter without being adopted (and with Floyd unable to get Fuzzy out of his mind), Martha adopted Fuzzy and had him flown across the country to New York.

Lampart predicted the ride would be a monster and it turned out he was right. Averaging 60-80 miles a day, depending on weather and road conditions, Lampart spent more than half of his time camping at state parks. Traveling alone and unsupported, he carried everything on his bike, including his tent, sleeping bag and clothes.

Best Friends runs the nation's largest no-kill sanctuary for companion animals, as well as life-saving programs in partnership with rescue groups and shelters across the country. For more information, visit http://bestfriends.org/.