Miles Washburn was a competitive cyclist long before he was a patient. In February 2025, an ordinary RSV infection turned into something far stranger: within days his speech began to slur, his throat forgot how to swallow, and the strength drained from his body until he could no longer rise from a chair. The doctors first suspected a stroke.

What they found instead was Guillain-Barré Syndrome — a rare autoimmune attack in which the body turns on its own nervous system. After a battery of scans, a spinal tap, and seven days in intensive care, IVIg treatment slowly began to turn the tide. Miles walked out of the hospital on a cane.

Recovery has not been a straight line. Nerve pain still comes and goes, anxiety with it, and the fatigue can be crushing. And yet, looking back on how much worse it might have been, Miles says simply: “I can honestly say I feel blessed.”

Now he is riding back up. In August 2026, with his wife Cindy and his former cycling coach Bill Humphreys beside him, Miles will climb Mont Ventoux — the Giant of Provence — not for a podium, but for every family facing GBS without the means to recover. He rides so that others can afford the canes, walkers, wheelchairs, and therapy that recovery demands, and so that a little-known syndrome finally gets a name. Every mile is dedicated to them.