A Quadriplegic Cycling Story

August 2, 2024, was my first time on a bicycle in 35 years and my first time rolling using my own muscles after many years in a power wheelchair. With the support of Southern Arizona Adaptive Sports, who loaned me a handcycle and helped adapt it to my needs, and my family, who supported me during all my early morning rides, I slowly built up my strength. My first time out, I could barely make it across the parking lot of the neighborhood park where we practiced. After a few months, I was able to cover a distance of two miles in a little under and hour. From the beginning, I set my sights on riding in the Tour de Tucson three-mile Fun Ride in November, less than four months away.

Early in the morning of November 23, I joined my race-day team, “Team Access” from Southern Arizona Adaptive Sports. We were all waiting near the starting line, getting ready, and taking pictures. There was a lot of excitement, there were a lot of people, there were a lot of wheelchairs and hand cycles, and everybody was really amped up.

There would be about ten of us riding in the 3-mile Fun Ride. Spectators and volunteers were stoked to see all the hand cycles, and I got pulled aside to do an interview for a documentary. I explained to the camera how, after 10 years of being spectator while my family raced, I was super excited to be able to participate with them for the first time.

My daughter, my husband and I had walked the course the week prior, so I knew the entire first mile was a hill. Now, this is not the kind of hill that would offend somebody on a bicycle—it is a fairly gentle grade, but for somebody on a hand cycle, or rather, a quadriplegic like me on a hand cycle, a hill of even a small grade is very challenging. I've been practicing hills for two months to get ready for this. My husband has been taking me riding a few times a week before work and on weekends, encouraging me up the big hill in our neighborhood, walking with me at a turtle’s pace around the bike loop at the park.

I want to give you all a sense of what it’s like to ride a hand cycle as a quadriplegic. With my level of spinal injury, I’m able to use my biceps, but my triceps are paralyzed. So, when I'm pedaling with my hands, I can pull hard when the pedals are at the bottom of the circle, but I need enough momentum for the petals to go over the top without any force, because I don’t have any muscles to push. For me, pedaling up a hill is like doing hundreds of push-ups (or I guess I should say pull-ups).

Back to race day: As we wheel up to the starting line (the starting line is up a hill), I start to feel a bit dizzy and then nervous. I get as close to the front as I can because hills are so hard for me. Crossing the starting line, I’m excited. There we all go: all the bicycles, all the hand cycles, all the parents walking with toddlers on mini bikes with training wheels. We all head out of the start line, yay!, up the hill.

For the first mile of the 3-mile event, I’ll be doing push-ups in, say, sets of 20 or 30 and having to rest between, because that's the amount of effort it is for me. I pedal across the starting line, and about 50 yards after that, I am completely exhausted. Here, at this moment, I am 50 yards into the 3-mile ride, and I feel out of gas. I am struggling with my push-ups, and I'm thinking, “Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into?”

I'm in the road. I slow down. I stop to gear down. And as I'm sitting there, essentially the last two year old on a tiny bicycle with training wheels passes me. And then, I'm the only one in the in the road, and I start pedaling again, and I'm tell myself I’m going to finish, it’ll just take a while. I’m pedaling up the hill a little bit more, and at that moment, some sort of TV camera starts filming me, about 15 feet in front of my face, zooming in on me. So I'm thinking, I'm not gonna stop, because there's a TV camera recording me going up this hill. I'm pedaling, 30 push ups, 40 push ups, 50 push ups up the hill, really exhausted. As they zoom in on my face, I'm the very last person leaving the starting line, only like 70 yards in and struggling to make it up the beginning of the mile-long hill.

All the way up the hill, I battle it, my sister coaching me how to breathe, my brother-in-law coaching me which cracks in the road to avoid, and both of them encouraging me every time I have to stop and pant and resume up the hill.

The hand cycle I'm riding, it has essentially 20 gears, ten regular gears and ten of what they call “mountain mode.” Now, the hill that I'm talking about is steep enough that I, as a quadriplegic, need to use gears between mountain mode 2 and mountain 4, which—let me explain to you—makes the bicycle go so slowly that the turtle on the skateboard that is always in my Reels can probably run faster.

About quarter of mile in, my sister tries to encourage me by letting me know how far we’ve come, and I'm thinking, “Is that it????” I still have three quarters of a mile of hill to go up. And now, there is no toddler in view; there is no other bicycle in view, just an empty street. And my sister, my brother-in-law, and I do a really slow turtle walk up the hill along empty streets. We pass a few race volunteers along the way, and they say, “Great job!” and I smile because I'm actually happy although I'm really struggling. And I say, “I may be last, but I'm getting there.”

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A mile in, we peak the top of the hill, and thank goodness the rest of the course is either downhill or flat. As I coast down, the barricades are already being taken down. The street is opening to cars. And down the hill and along the flat bike path I go, moving at a reasonable pace now. And to the volunteers I pass, I say again, “I know I'm last, but I'm getting there.” Finally, I pedal across the finish line, the last one on the ride by at least 30 minutes, and I think, “I could do that again.”

And so, at the end of my three-mile battle, I am re-energized with excitement and happiness. This is one step in a my journey to become healthier and stronger. My goal is to be able to do that hill, and hills like it, without struggling, and I'll get there.