could succeed and do the mileage; make it up all the hills, or alongside the long stretches of corn, or the hours of rain.
On the longer trips, and during the training for a longer trip, early on as you start to get into better shape, the physical aspect becomes easier. You are still can be very tired at the end of a 85-100 mile day of cycling, but the next day was a new day, and with some rest, all would be good. Once you have gotten into shape physically, after cycling most every day for a couple of weeks, you feel great. It’s cool to be able to go out and cycle that many miles in a day and view amazing scenery in some cases.
But then the greatest challenge for me was the mental aspect. Halfway through the Around the World Ride as we entered Eastern Europe, we had been cycling most days for about 3-4 months, with a day off every 10-12 days, it can begin to wear on you emotionally. We were going to be away from having a lot easier contact with friends and family back in the States. While we earlier cycled in the US and for parts of Western Europe, the next 2 1/2 - 3 months while crossing Russia, Mongolia and China, we would be out of any touch with friends and family back home. You begin definitely to miss home more and wishing it was closer to the end of the ride. There were some hard days in there, but all in all I would not have traded these adventures, even looking back on some of the hardest days.
'Get back out there!'
I saw you worked for an organization called "Move with Freedom", can you tell me a little about it?
Move With Freedom was a non-profit which encouraged new designs of adaptive cycling designs. This was to help people to get out and participate in sports and recreation. Most of my efforts for Move with Freedom were volunteer. I was one of the designers who help develop ideas on how to design and improve adaptive cycles for people to use.
Why do you bike? Is it a passion? Do you do it for helping others? Why?
I now bike to share the experience with others, young and older people new to adaptive cycling; Adaptive cycling is a term used to describe all types of cycling, adapted for the individual needs of the cyclist. Both foot and arm powered. Two-, three-, and four-wheeled vehicles, all kinds of cool vehicles. During the summer months I volunteer most weeks for the Maine Adaptive Sports and recreation program in their Cycling program. They meet one day a week down in Portland and folks from all over Maine, NH, and parts of MA come to try out different “bikes”. It is very cool and rewarding for me to see the expression on someones face when they realize they can get out there and sometimes ‘get back out there’, after an accident or injury and get some exercise, get their heart rate up again and just have a good time with friends and family.
When I was younger, it was a passion to see how far I could cycle, to see new places, meet new people, learn little bits of a new language - if the travels involved another culture. Also to enjoy riding on a handcycle, a new unusual vehicle that often got many interesting expressions from people as I cycled past. There are many smaller adventures I haven’t shared here; though many memories still exist.
Have you ever let your disability of walking stop you from doing what you want?
This question is not too personal and I appreciate your concern and asking. I would say that the challenges I have faced regarding my ‘disability’ have not stopped me from doing what I want. Even though I have faced this much of my life, it certainly has not stopped me from living most days with a positive attitude and a desire to help others.
It did affect my work the last few years when I was working as a senior design engineer, when I found the need to use the wheelchair more often, and there were offices of clients and other consultants who office was not wheelchair accessible. Oftentimes when I needed to visit a construction site, as you can imagine it became more problematic for me to do that work, to inspect progress of the design we did while the contractors were building it. Often construction sites are not at all accessible. So this was when I could no longer do that work like I had for most of my life.