We’re Stoked (on MS) to be screening “This Way Up” in the Pedal-Powered Cinema at Cream o’ the Croft this year!  

MS (Multiple Sclerosis) is a subject that’s very close to our heart here at Muckmedden, so it gives us great pleasure to be showing Andy McKenna’s superb “This Way Up” film in the Pedal-Powered Cinema at Cream o’ the Croft on June 15th!  We hope you’ll join us for the full-length charity screening of this fantastic short film.

We also need you to provide the leg-power for the cinema! 🙂

Shortlisted by Vancouver and Kendal International Mountain Film Festival’s and now on worldwide tour, this fantastic short film tells the story of professional mountain bike guide Andy McKenna’s pharma-free face-off with Multiple Sclerosis and his quest for a holistic path to health.

First time filmmaker Andy McCandlish worked with Andy (the other Andy) to share a ‘broken’ man’s journey by bike through his homeland.  Scotland.  Through the film, McKenna and McCandlish share what they found.

Andy, a professional mountain bike guide, needs to keep on riding bikes and continue living an active life after becoming acquainted with this menacing disease in 2007. The film launches the next chapter of Andy’s ‘Stoked on MS’ mission to raise awareness and support for the two unsung heroes who helped Andy gain control of this disease, and his life, through diet, rest, exercise and lifestyle changes; The Swank Foundation  and Over Coming MS.

The impetus for following this path is largely down to the research, inspiration and support of these two organisations who made Andy fundamentally question the status-quo around MS treatment and whether it was right for him.  Andy’s been a mountain biker since the 1980s and a professional mountain bike guide making his living from running mountain bike adventures in Scotland with Go Where.  He was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in 2007 and, although he didn’t know it then, far from being the end of his mountain bike career and his life, this (apparently) incurable degenerative neurological disease was the start of a different kind of mountain bike journey.

A hysterical, ridiculous, rewarding, precious one.

Everyone experiences challenges in life.  Some get buried under the veneer of a normal existence.  Facebook selfies and glorious Instabangers don’t always tell the whole story.  Finding the connection between the realities of life and how we deal with them – when coping from behind handlebars is the primary tactic – and will hopefully strike a chord with many whether they ride or not.  Biking helps to cope, to escape and to keep Andy sane.