UPFRONT
Thanks to the advancement of technology in the disability space, adaptive bikes are taking riders to places they always dreamed of returning to, or dreamed of visiting.
FLOW Riders Kootenay Adaptive and Arc’teryx host Squamish’s first FLOW women’s adaptive mountain bike retreat.
A flowy strip of singletrack snaking through the Squamish rainforest, Half Nelson is one of the most celebrated mountain bike trails in the world. So, as instructors of the first ever FLOW women’s adaptive mountain bike retreat, it is our goal to get as many of our riders up there as possible to experience the magic. For most riders, ripping Half Nelson is just another day down the mountain. To us, it’s an escape from wheelchairs and mobility devices, disabilities, and a world that isn’t built for us. Is the trail intentionally built for
us? No. Can our adaptive bikes handle it? Beautifully. And so, despite having lost the ability to walk, I’m sitting at the top of a mountain surrounded by other women, with and without disabilities, taking in views I never thought I would see again. I was 16 when a motocross accident left me with a spinal cord injury. I was told I would never walk again. That was irrelevant to me—what I cared about most was how, or if, I would get back outside, onto the trails, and into the wild independently. It wasn’t
HAILEY ELISE
looking so promising from my hospital bed. What I didn’t know at the time was that there were others just like me—women with only one hand to hold onto the handlebars, women who couldn’t see, women with limited hand function who were paralyzed from the chest down—but all of us itching to get outside onto terrain that wasn’t built for us and felt unavailable to us. Women learning skills, empowering each other, and finding innovative ways to make these dreams a reality. Fast forward nine years after my accident; I’m a mountain bike instructor for Kootenay Adaptive, a BC-based non-profit and global leader in adaptive mountain bike programs, instruction, and sport development. In this moment though, my role doesn’t matter. What matters is that we have 11 women with various disabilities including spinal cord injuries, cerebral palsy, visual impairments, and leg and arm amputations, 33
