Details

First Name

Mark

Last Name

Skinner

Nickname

wai-cycle-guy

Transport

Travel Interests

Bicycle, Boat – Sailing, Running, Skiing/Snowboarding, Walking/Hiking

About Me

About Me
    Hello. I’m Mark (aka WAI-cycle guy). I live in Switzerland with my wife. I am a father, grandfather, brother and uncle. I am a lawyer-turned-psychologist and love adventures in the outdoors that connect challenges of mind and body.
    For a personal re-TYRE (!) project I decided to take on a challenging cycle expedition to raise awareness and funds for a universally important issue that I am sure has already touched most of you as it has me.
    I began the first stage of my journey – to find the house in Germany where Dr Alzheimer was born – at the end of April 2024 and I am now well into Stage 2 which takes me into North Germany/Denmark.
    I will cycle up to the Nordics and Finland this year and then find a route to Japan. I am doing this in honour of my mother Maureen, who lived 15 years with Alzheimer’s disease – sadly, we already lost ‘her’ in many ways before she died from the disease at the end of 2019.
    I now recognize that I am also a potential candidate!
    So I want to use my journey to raise more awareness about Alzheimer’s; the most common form of dementia: there were 55 million sufferers of dementia (known about!) world-wide in 2020. There is no cure and the numbers of sufferers increases every year. According to WHO, people living with dementia are projected to almost double every 20 years – reaching 70 million by 2030 and 139 million by 2050. Alzheimer’s is also creating ongoing loss for ten times more people in the families affected. In addition, Imagine the ongoing and increasing impact on health and care systems as well as families. Then imagine the costs involved – 2.8 trillion dollars by 2030. Alzheimer’s is usually seen as an old people disease but this is very misleading; I now appreciate that how and where we live as younger adults plays a huge part in whether and when we might get Alzheimer’s later.
    It is never too late! So I want to discover more about what I can do and change to give the best chance to avoid or at least delay Alzhemers’s. I will personally set out to adopt most of the actions that the experts I can find advise me to do. I am changing my mind before my mind changes me!
    Sorry to say, you are also a potential candidate! So along the way I will also share all of the expert advice I receive. Follow my adventures and discover how to live long and strong in mind and body.

    More links to come later….

    Thanks for reading this!

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