Adaptive Riding on the Rise
Developing ways to get more riders with different abilities on the trails
Imagine arriving at your favourite trail centre, hopping up the steps in front of the ticket window to buy your pass, making a quick run to the bathroom, taking your bike down from a rack, gathering your gear and heading out onto the trails. Now imagine doing that in a wheelchair.
In 2018, Mike Riediger was living in the B.C. Interior and was asked to produce a feasibility study on making the sport of mountain biking adaptive for those with different mobility requirements. That project led to the creation of the Kootenay Adaptive Sport Association (kasa). “Feasibility studies are all well and good, but we were just going to make it happen,” Riediger says.
Since then, he’s been able to secure funding to create a rental program that allows people to try adaptive mountain bikes and a gravity-tour series to increase the visibility of adaptive riding and showcase athlete talents. He’s also developed an infrastructure branch of kasa to advise on the creation of accessible trails, trailheads and outdoor spaces that promote physical literacy for all. kasa’s work has quickly become a resource for organizations around the world working to build accessible spaces within mountain biking.
Growth has been fast in large part because so little has been done in the field of adaptive riding until recently. “Everything has come easy and hard at the same time,” Riediger says. “There’s so much space for creativity. It’s exhausting but motivation is really easy to keep going.”
Tanelle Bolt has been working and travelling throughout British Columbia as the founder of the rad Recreation Adapted Society or rad Society in short. Bolt experienced a spinal-cord injury during a bridge-jumping accident that broke her T6 vertebra, leaving her a paraplegic. Prior to the injury, she was incredibly driven, working multiple jobs and chasing adventure. While her personality hasn’t changed, the challenges have.
“Everyone wants to know how to solve the problems, but society keeps building with barriers,” says Bolt, who is an interior designer and consults on accessibility and adaptive design. “There’s a story of a school janitor shovelling snow from the steps at the school when a student shows up in a wheelchair to a ramp still covered in snow. The janitor says ‘I’ll do the ramp when I finish the stairs,’ and the student replies, ‘If you do the ramp first, we can all get inside.’”
The focus of the rad Society is broader than cycling, and embraces all manner of outdoor adventures. From within Bolt and Riediger’s different organizations, the two are often comparing notes and talking about how to improve accessibility in Western Canada.
rad Society is in the process of building out a shipping container that will be set up with racks for adaptive outdoor gear, an adaptive workbench, a rolling door and an entry ramp. Bolt is actively seeking funding to put this all together. Having the container finished and active, and renting out gear, is one of the best ways to make adaptive sport visible.
“You don’t see a sledge available at skate-rental places, or para-golfer devices at golf courses. There’s really no options for trying before you buy, and this stuff is really expensive,” Bolt says. She wants to see centres develop all over with shipping containers full of adaptive gear and hopes this first container can prove the value of these projects.
“Let’s start solving the problems starting now,” Bolt says of the need to design and build spaces with accessibility fully included. “We need to change the mindset moving forward. When a wheelchair can get somewhere, it means we can all get there.”
Now imagine that.
“Everything has come easy and hard at the same time.”