Fourteen cyclists plan to leave Point State Park today for the 325-mile ride to Washington, D.C., to promote research into vasculitis and other rare diseases.

The riders, from Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri, will follow the Great Allegheny Passage and the C&O Canal trail, stopping in five towns along the way. The trip will take six days. When they arrive in Washington, the cyclists will present a petition to members of Congress urging increased funding for the Office of Rare Diseases Research in the National Institutes of Health, whose current budget is $16 million.

Vasculitis is a general term for a group of diseases causing inflammation of blood vessels.