FORT WAYNE – It’s nothing for Fort Wayne resident Gordon Given to jump on his motorcycle, ride to West Virginia or Virginia in a day, then head home the next day.

Heck, one group of bikers he knows hopped on their bikes and rode to California and back in a week.

On Saturday, though, Given, the online sales manager for Fort Wayne Newspapers, plans to try to outdo them all by riding to Alaska – and back – in two weeks, a ride that will see him on the highway at least 10 hours a day.

About 80 percent of the people Given talks to about his plans – his wife included – think he’s nuts.

But there’s a purpose behind his madness, and it doesn’t have anything to do with motorcycles. He’s trying to spread the word about a disease that until recently he didn’t know even existed.

It all started years ago when Given noticed that a co-worker, who had been sick, was losing a lot of weight. “I was afraid to ask him what was wrong,” Given said, afraid he’d hear “the C word” – meaning cancer.

One day, though, the co-worker explained he had Crohn’s disease.

Given’s reaction was, “Huh? What’s that?”

Given assumed it was a relatively rare disease until he learned another co-worker had the same condition and had undergone 30 surgeries in the past six years.

“It hit home,” Given said. “Two people within 50 feet of me had been hit by the disease.”

In time he realized that practically everyone knows someone who suffers from Crohn’s disease or a related condition.

Crohn’s disease is an inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract caused when the body’s immune system mistakenly starts attacking bacteria normally found there.

The disease interferes with the body’s ability to digest food and absorb nutrients and those with the disease suffer loss of appetite, fatigue and weight loss, plus more serious complications can occur.

Despite it all, Given said, the people he knew with the disease “have the most positive outlook I’ve ever seen. There’s always a smile on their faces. They all have the attitude, ‘Tomorrow will be a better day.’ That’s what struck me.”

But nobody talks about the disease, even though it affects at least 1 million people in the U.S. alone.

“It’s not pleasant to talk about,” Given said. “But people should be able to talk about it and know the impact it has on people.”

So Given is hitting the road to talk about it, all the way to Alaska.

His plan is typical for long-distance rides like this. He’ll stop in towns along the way, try to get interviews with local TV stations or newspapers, spread the word about the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America and urge people to support research of the disease, which is still a bit of a mystery.

He’s wangled free stays in hotels in eight of the 12 cities where he plans to spend the night along the way, offering to make a donation to the CCFA in each hotel’s name in exchange for a free room.

It’s bound to be an exhausting trip. Riding 10 hours a day in a car can be hard enough, but doing it on a 1,100 cc motorcycle is enough to make anyone feel wrung out.

Given won’t look like your typical charity rider, though. He’ll be on an orange motorcycle wearing a leather jacket and gloves and leather chaps. But those are necessary for his protection, he said.

“Bugs and rocks hurt” when you run into them at highway speed. “Those things hurt.”

People can follow Given’s trip at his blog, GordosVancouverAdventure.blogspot.com.