I'm 26 years old and have been riding since I was about 13, when I was 19 I had a pretty horrific crash on my bike during which I tore all 5 of the nerves in the Brachial Plexus, C5 - C6 - C7 - C8 & T1.
This left me with a paralysed left arm.
There are a few videos about my accident and my riding, this one gives a good insight to my crash and my initial riding...
Since then I have kept the same bike but experimented with different forks and brakes, and played with my orange 224 downhill bike for my extreme riding.
One thing that I haven't had much chance to improve is how I manage my paralysed arm, obviously I can't move it properly or hold on to my handle bar, so I've made do with my sling. Whilst my sling is helpful to hold my arm up out the way in the event of a crash, I have seen and I'm jealous of, the benefits fellow Brachial Plexus rider Tom Wheeler realises using his arm brace, which gives him a lot more support on the bike but does not easily detach when required.
I have dabbled with braces when I was riding with Disability Sport Wales and British Cycling's Paracycling development team, although sadly these braces always failed when it came to the locking mechanism; either they fell off unexpectedly or they did not disconnect in the event of a crash.
Thats enough about me for now, any questions?
No comments:
Post a Comment