These beer- and bicycle-loving friends have raised $160,000 for MS research

Team Beer Gutz members Ed Dutra and Frank Fermino at a rest stop. (Photo courtesy of Ed Dutra)

Ed Dutra never considered himself a serious cyclist. The Warwick resident owned a bicycle, but preferred drinking beer and brewing his own to strenuous rides through the Rhode Island countryside. That is, until his friend Frank Fermino — a Rhode Island native who now serves as a brewer at Smuttynose Brewing Company in New Hampshire — suggested they form a team for Bike MS: Ride the Rhode, an annual charity ride that raises funds for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

“My very first year that I rode, I didn’t have a road bike,” Dutra says. “Then the seriousness and the dedication really came through for me. It was like, ‘This is something I have to do.’”

Team Beer Gutz, as they call themselves, has now raised $160,000 for MS research and support since their first race in 2008. The number of team members has varied over the years, with anywhere from a handful to 32 cyclists participating. This year, eight members of Team Beer Gutz plan to take on Ride the Rhode on June 10 and 11 at the University of Rhode Island. Participants can choose from a number of routes ranging from 35 miles to 150 miles over two days.

The team raises funds through online donations, an annual yard sale Dutra and his wife, Nancy, host at their home and the occasional brewery event. Despite the seriousness of the cause, Dutra says they take a decidedly “nonserious” approach on race day. One of the team’s rules is if a member passes a yard sale during the race, they have to stop and buy something. Another rule: Always carry enough cash for ice cream.

“Because it is an awareness ride, it doesn’t do anybody any good if I blow by at twenty miles an hour and nobody knows what we’re doing,” Dutra says.

The team has experienced its share of tragedy. In 2012, Gary Lanoue — a founding member who gave the team its name when he commented his wife would like him to lose his “beer gut” — passed away following a fall during a training ride. A few years earlier, Dutra’s next-door-neighbor, Sharon Greenwood, was diagnosed with MS shortly after she and Dutra started participating in the Jet Pull, another MS fundraiser where volunteers pull a seventy-two-ton FedEx Express Jet down the runway at T.F. Green Airport.

With just over a month to go, the team is still significantly short of its $10,000 fundraising goal. Bike MS allows them to continue fundraising through August, when the cycle starts over for next year. After the ride, the team typically gathers for drinks at Wakefield’s Mews Tavern. They also have a shot of bourbon in honor of Lanoue.

“When Gary passed away, it became more of a determination for me to make this team matter. To make it count,” Dutra says. “If I can find out I can help save one life from multiple sclerosis or make one person’s life better, then my friend wouldn’t have died in vain.”

To donate to Team Beer Gutz, visit mssociety.donordrive.com.

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