Orange Beach, Ala. – (OBA) – No one has to convince Don Klee about the joys of having the Branyon Backcountry Trail almost in his backyard.

“That’s what brought me to Orange Beach,” the Michigan retiree said. “I actually bought a house here because of it. I’ve never ridden on a trail that’s as nice as this one is. Ever. I guess that’s why they’re in the top 10 bike trails.”

The Branyon Backcountry Trail is indeed in an USA Today internet contest to win a top 10 spot in its reader’s choice awards for 2023. The first ballot is to winnow the number from 20 trails to a top 10 and then name the top vote getter as the overall winner. Klee says he votes daily – you’re allowed one vote per day – and you can submit your vote by clicking here.

Klee, who didn’t start riding a bike until after retirement, rides what’s know as a handcycle because a childhood illness has left lasting effects in his legs.

“I am a polio survivor,” Klee said. “There’s not many of us left.”

Back in the mid-2000s, Coastal Resource Director Phillip West, one of the major proponents of the trail’s continued development, was patrolling on the trail and came upon Klee with the rare handcycle. A conversation was struck up and West learned there were, at the time, three polio survivors who rode handcycles as a group on the trail.

“I’m the only one left. One fellow cannot ride anymore and the other fellow moved away from here,” Klee said. “But I’m still riding out there every day.”

He was an anomaly even back in the 50s when he first got polio, contracting the disease just weeks before the vaccine for polio was to be used on the public.

“I had polio in 1954 and missed the shot by six weeks, the vaccine,” Klee said. “There were nine siblings in our family and I’m the only one that had it. I was in a one-room schoolhouse and three of us got it in that one-room schoolhouse.”

He spends about five months of the year during the cooler months in Orange Beach and then goes back to Michigan for the other seven months of the year. He’s retired from owning a custom cabinet shop but from time to time he works a little with his son who now runs the company.

But finding a place to ride in Michigan is a challenge.

“In our immediate area there are no bike trails,” Klee said. “I have to drive 50 miles to get to a bike trail. I go there but it’s not like this place. I’m in a farming community and any main roads have got a lot of big farm trucks on it. It’s not safe.”

So, he rides the popular trails here practically every day. But certain conditions apply before he loads up the bike and heads to either the Orange Beach Sportsplex or the parking lot of the Oak Ridge Trail trailhead in Gulf Shores.

“I enjoy the trail really well,” Klee said one recent chilly morning. “I didn’t ride this morning but we’re riding this afternoon. We have a pact that it’s got to be at least 50 degrees and under 10 mph wind. It’ll be 52 and an eight-mph wind at 2 o’clock so that’s when we’re riding.”