RIDE ON—Marilyn Becker, 67, of Newbury Park has raised about $23,000 for charities by biking in multiday bike rides for the past several years. She was recently given a bicycle from a Santa Monica bike shop for raising the most money during National Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week last month. RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers Marilyn Becker doesn’t let age stop her.

The 67- year- old Newbury Park resident has cycled some 4,000 miles for charity over a dozen years

“I have a lot of fun with my riding,” said Becker, who wears the names of her donors on colorful plastic tabs stuck to her helmet and carries the names of people she knows who have multiple sclerosis on her red riding bag during charity bike rides. “I don’t feel 67. . . . I really attribute that to my riding.”

The Southern California and Nevada chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society recently presented Becker with an $850 bicycle donated by a Santa Monica bike shop for raising the most money during National Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week last month.

FRIENDLY REMINDER—A smiling flower hitches a ride on Marilyn Becker’s bike whenever she rides in honor of the many people she cycles for. RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers Becker, a semiretired physician’s assistant, plans to cycle 160 miles for the sixth time in the Bike MS: Coastal Challenge on Oct. 1 and 2. The bike ride from Ventura to Santa Barbara is one of many fundraisers across the country sponsored annually by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Although the two-day ride from Ventura to Santa Barbara offers easy to moderate routes for cyclists of nearly every level, Becker isn’t taking the easy way out. She plans to ride the full 160 miles.

Becker is captain of 17-member Team Ultra, whose goal is to raise a total of $10,000 for the society. The team has raised $3,776 so far, $2,876 by Becker alone. All cyclists commit to raising at least $350.

“I know we’ll make it,” said Becker, whose team last year had fewer members and raised $11,000.

Becker’s personal goal in the MS bike ride is to raise $5,177 this year. Her signature fundraising effort is to pledge $1 more than the amount she raised the year before. Last year, she raised $5,176.

Becker started cycling with friends 12 years ago. She hadn’t been on a bicycle since she was a child. The hobby soon turned into an obsession, and before long the mother of one was taking on century, or 100-mile, rides in multiday fundraisers.

Her first two events were seven-day AIDS charity bike rides from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 2000 and 2001.

In 2005, she undertook a similar bike journey to benefit an arthritis foundation, raising $17,000—a personal best for Becker. In all, Becker estimates she’s cycled some 4,000 miles for charities.

Becker has sometimes participated in more than one charity bike ride in a year. She’s stuck with the MS ride for the past five years, raising $23,000 for the nonprofit.

She’s stayed with the MS bike ride because of a co-worker’s daughter.

“My heart just went out to the mom,” Becker said. “(Her daughter) was really young and was crippled from MS.”

The daughter was in her 30s when she died a few years ago.

Kari Boatner, spokesperson for the Southern California and Nevada division of the National MS Society, said her chapter serves 19,000 people. The Coastal Challenge is not one of the biggest fundraisers of the year for the chapter but brings awareness to the illness, she said.

“Too many people still have MS and are suffering from it. It needs to be highlighted as a disease,” Boatner said.

The money raised in MS bike rides supports education, advocacy, research and programs that contribute to the quality of life for people living with multiple sclerosis and their families, the nonprofit’s website says.

Becker likes that the nonprofit spends 20 percent of donated money on administration and 80 percent goes directly to benefit MS patients.

“She’s really an inspiration to us here,” Boatner said. “Her level of commitment is very rare—that she participates for that many years and raises that level of money.”

To scout for donors, Becker writes letters to friends, patients, past donors, acquaintances, friends of friends and businesses. People have contributed by finding her Facebook page. She said she wants to give them credit.

“Yes, I’ve raised $23,000, but how could I do that without my donors?” she said. “They’re wonderful, wonderful, wonderful people.”

On Saturday, Becker will cycle, as she’s done for the past dozen years, in the century run in Cruisin’ the Conejo, a 26-year fundraising tradition in Thousand Oaks. The ride is sponsored by Conejo Valley Cyclists and benefits several charities.

Becker cycles for fun and health four days a week, trying to clock 100 miles on her odometer. But cycling for charitable causes boosts her state of mind, body and spirit.

“It feels good,” Becker said. “It’s good for us, and we can do a lot of good things with our bikes.”

Not one to sit out retirement on the sidelines, Becker works one day a week at a Thousand Oaks doctor’s office and recently became a member of the Thousand Oaks Police Department’s

Volunteers in Policing.

The community volunteers add a law enforcement presence to the streets of T.O., checking on homes when residents are on vacation, ticketing parking violators and the like. Becker, a VIP three days a week, begins vehicle patrol training on Monday.

“It’s great,” Becker said.

But could the sexagenarian be too busy?

“It keeps you young,” she said.