Don't ride. Sell at $1.00, buy back at $0.20 or less. Which is my point. Yes, if you had ridden the stock out, it would now be trading at $5ish. OTOH, even selling at $0.55 you could easily have bought back 2-3x times the number of shares for the same dollar investment just a while later.
So, for a $1k investment, riding that $0.55/share gets one back about $9k if the price hits $5. OTOH, Selling at %0.55 and buying back at $0.20 gives one a $25K return.