Today I woke up at 6:45 and decided it was a perfect morning to get on my handcycle bike and put some miles in. I left my house and started to go my normal route, but I decided to try something new.The same old roads just get boring, so I proceeded down an old four-wheeler trail with hopes it would take me to the destination I was thinking. The terrain was different from anything I had ever road on, a lot of rocks, mud, and some other obstacles I had to find my way around. I figured this was the perfect opportunity to try a new route because I had my little buddy Macus who is 12 to help if I ran into any difficulties. All in all, the ride turned out perfect except for the fact that the whole way home is all up hill, but it is a killer work out! We put in a solid 6.5 miles to start off the day.. After a ride like that you feel great the rest of the day!
I have had my hand-cycle for about 5 years. The past 3 years I had made it my goal to bike at least 2 times a week.. When I first started biking, I was lucky to make it 2 miles before my arms and core were completely shot. As of today, I hit 1100 recorded miles, which is something I had never dreamed would be possible. I failed and got discouraged when I could only go those 2 miles at the beginning, but guess what? That did not stop me… My longest ride to date is 27.6 miles, something doctors never thought I would be doing. Be that person to prove everyone wrong and show them what you are made of!
Now…. Getting on and off the bike is a whole different story. I used to need help getting on and off my bike. Finally, one day I was sick of not being able to go biking when I wanted to if no one was around to help. So here is where it gets interesting… Getting onto the bike isn’t to bad, its just a pain to get my legs up into the holsters. Getting off the bike…. Well that’s the difficult part, I literally have to crawl off of my bike and do a floor transfer back onto the bike… Then its hope and pray time that I can get my butt high enough to get back into my wheelchair. About 50% of the time I have a clean transfer, the other 50% is where I face plant into the cement and end up with a few scraps. The below video shows actual footage of me failing… It does happen, but you have to get back up and give it another shot. NEVER BACK DOWN! The human body is such an amazing piece of machinery…