In September 2020, Miron Golfman moved in with his uncle, the late Bruce Rosenblum, and served as the former Belmont resident’s first primary caregiver.
For three months, Golfman helped out his aunt and uncle, who was sick with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a nervous system disease affecting the brain and spinal cord.
At the end of those three months, Golfman embarked on a two-month bike tour of the Baja Divide, a 1,730-mile bikepacking route connecting the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez.
In the film, Golfman said it was during that bike tour that he came up with the concept of attempting a fastest known time of the Baja Divide, while also raising money for ALS. He reached out to Bruce’s son, Aaron Rosenblum, and the two cousins started to plan.
Rosenblum, 27, assembled a team to document his cousin’s experience along the Baja Divide. He launched a website and partnered with the Massachusetts chapter of the ALS Association.
Golfman set out at midnight on New Year’s Day 2022, intending to complete a 1,600-mile portion of the route faster than the fastest known time of 11 days, 11 hours, and 20 minutes. His experience, paired with interviews with Rosenblum’s father, was compiled in a 30-minute documentary that debuted at film festivals this summer. In Belmont, the community will have the opportunity to watch a screening of that film, “Ride to Endure,” at the Beth El Temple Center on Jan. 4 at 7 p.m.
“[The film] was done to be somewhat inspiring, and we hope that it can continue being that way,” Rosenblum said. “I think it’s hard a lot of the time for people with ALS or other debilitating diseases … to have a voice … We were trying to give that to people as best we [could] and have an inspirational story, instead of one that’s just sad.”
Though he died on Dec. 13, 2023, months shy of the film’s completion, Bruce’s story is woven throughout the film, both through interviews and the subject matter.
“I think throughout the whole process of making it we were trying to have it be both about him and his spirit, as well as about the bike journey,” Rosenblum, 27, said. “The thing with my dad is, he was losing control of his physical body; every day was an endurance challenge of losing the ability to use his body and being in pain. With this kind of ultra-endurance cycling, you’re pushing yourself well past what your body can handle so it’s really a mental challenge more than a physical challenge. You figure out how to move forward and continue pushing even though your body is completely busted up.”
Rosenblum said his dad was involved in the whole journey, tracking Golfman from start to finish.
“He was very invested in just participating in any way he could,” he said. “When he was fully able-bodied, he was a very adventurous and exploration-oriented person. I think that is just another [reason] why this felt it could be the right thing.”
The endeavor has raised $100,000. Initially, the money benefited the ALS Association; now, it benefits Sean M. Healey and the AMG Center for ALS at Massachusetts General Hospital. Of the $100,000 raised, roughly $60,000 resulted from the ride featured in the film.
The fundraising success didn’t come as a surprise to Rosenblum.
“If I didn’t have to work a full-time job, it could have raised a lot more,” he said. “I always knew we’d be able to raise money, which is why I was excited about this.”
Rosenblum hopes to continue his father’s legacy of dedicating his life after diagnosis to being part of the solution.
“He signed up for every single clinical trial he could; he would speak to patients and doctors,” he said. “Anyone he could talk to about research in any way, he was doing that.”
And that’s what Rosenblum aspires to do— educate others about ALS and raise money for research.
“The team that put this together was pretty amazing and did a lot of incredible work for mostly no money,” Rosenblum said. “It’s pretty cool that we can show it to people now.”
For those who cannot make the Jan. 4 screening, the entire film is available on YouTube at tinyurl.com/RideToEndure.