A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending a fundraising event for the High Fives Foundation, a nonprofit that supports athletes and veterans recovering from life-changing injuries. I didn’t know much about the organization beforehand and was primarily there because my friend Seth, a big supporter, invited me. He promised a good time with food, drinks, friends, and inspiring stories. Plus, it was being held in Martis Camp, a breathtaking location in Truckee, CA, that I’d been curious to explore.
On the night of the event, I arrived a little early, checked in, picked up my name tag, and entered the event space, excited to see my friends. But, like I said, it was early and the initial attendees were dispersed in small groups. I didn’t recognize anyone, and it was only then that I became aware I was among adaptive athletes – many in wheelchairs.
I began to feel a mix of panic and anxiety – like the new kid on the first day of school whose mom had overdressed him. The adult in me knew that if I avoided eye contact any longer, my level of discomfort would become unbearable, so I forced myself to say hello to the nearest person. That unlucky young man was Jimi.
My coping mechanism in situations of social anxiety is to fill the empty space by blathering nervously. Jimi found himself on the receiving end of that. In my rapid-fire questioning of him, I learned that he became paraplegic from a car accident three years ago and, with the support of High Fives, had taken up adaptive mountain biking. I didn’t know what adaptive mountain biking was, nor had I ever seen one. He told me they are electric-assist mountain trikes that can handle incredibly aggressive singletrack trails. In short, they are engineering marvels. (You can see a picture of one here.)
About 15 minutes into my interrogation, Eric, seeing the panic in Jimi’s eyes, rolled up in his wheelchair to bail him out. Eric told me that Jimi races and hits jumps on his bike. He has even rolled it a few times. These adaptive bikes aren’t exactly designed for solo adventures, but they both regularly head out alone anyway. As an avid mountain biker myself, I know crashes and mechanical issues — flat tires, broken chains, brake problems — are part of the game. Dealing with them can be dreadful when you’re able-bodied on a 25-pound bike, but it’s an entirely different challenge when your bike weighs nearly four times as much and you don’t have use of your legs.
I shared with Jimi and Eric that I recently bought an electric-assist mountain bike and couldn’t get over how much fun it was. We nerded out over the technology comparing similarities and differences between our rides. I also told them that last summer, I started having trouble with my right knee. So much so, that I had to stop biking for months at a time. I have seen numerous specialists, but we haven’t put our finger on the underlying issue yet. I was pleased to report that my new electric mountain bike had allowed me to ease back into riding without overly aggravating my knee.
Yes, you read that correctly – I was standing in front of two paraplegic riders in wheelchairs, lamenting that I thought my mountain biking days were over because I hurt my knee. If I had been a little more self-aware, it would’ve been comedy gold. But nope – in my desperate attempt to connect the dots between our similarities, I came up with that. They had the class to feign sympathy and smile graciously as I dropped that clanger.
When my lack of situational awareness finally registered, I quickly tried to pivot and asked Eric how often he rode. He told me he’d ridden over 3,000 miles last year. That’s about 60 miles a week – a legitimate amount for any cyclist. But here’s the kicker: Jimi chimed in to let me know that Eric’s mountain bike isn’t a throttle bike, it’s an electric-assist hand-crank bike.
Let me repeat that: 3,000 mountain biking miles. On a hand. crank. bike.
I asked Eric what motivated him to take on adaptive mountain biking. He told me that about a year after breaking his back in a rock-climbing fall, he met someone in even worse shape who still managed to ride an adaptive mountain bike. Eric said he asked himself, “What’s my excuse?”
