Jungle Room, If you have to ask . ., Allentown, PA (2026)

10/20/2022

I came upon this photo from 2018 the other day and it made me smile. It was a memorable race: one of my few decent results from that season — second in a tempo points race — and fortunately with my dad and uncle in town to watch and hang with friends at .

I miss those summer Fridays!

📸

10/10/2022

I know it’s been two months, but I’m still riding high on .

I just put the finishing touches on an essay about the experience of being part of the first cohort of paracyclists to race this event. I can’t wait for you to read it! Watch this space for details in the coming weeks!

08/26/2022

Last week I was pretty lost in how could have been better, but I loved the race. I had so much fun all weekend and so admire the promoters’ efforts to create something so broadly inclusive. The panel obstacles to racing on Friday helped us spotlight some important issues, and the prominence of para cyclists, fat cyclists, and black/brown people (relative to other races, anyway) was really cool and helped to contribute to an overall great weekend.

The crew I rode with deserve a special shout out: We’d been talking on zoom all year, and met for the first time in steamboat. But everyone came together like old friends. Each of us brought our own baggage, hopes, and dreams for the race, and I was really heartened by how well everyone supported each other. Taking the line with my teammates, and then cheering for each other at the finish made the experience so rich and rewarding in ways that my own achievement wouldn’t have been on its own. I’m so proud of how well everyone did on the roads and was honored to ride with this group!

I continue to learn about my disabled body and while I’m general happy with how I rode, I needed to p*e so badly in the last hour that I couldn’t ride downhill with any sp*ed (too bumpy!) and could hardly even pedal! I was so focused on getting to the line that I lost track of my basic needs. I’m certain I would have enjoyed the race more (and still won my category), even if I’d taken a nature break.

That’s a lesson for next time! I hope to be able to race again next year, and to continue learning how to race gravel and to have an even better time’🙌

08/10/2022

I am SO excited to race on Sunday with my Team! So excited that I’m prematurely stressed about all the s**t I have to accomplish before leaving Friday morning. For a few reasons, big goal events always seem to come with extra headaches, and then I added a few more, like accepting an invitation to sit on a panel about the race’s efforts to be more inclusive of all kinds of cyclists on Friday(I’m one of a couple dozen paracyclists racing) … so I have to get a haircut!

But anyway, im excited! I’ve been riding a lot — putting up big (for me) weeks all summer, and mixing longer rides into the hills with shorter, faster group rides, and throwing in lightweight singletrack as well to make sure I know exactly how my bike handles in most situations. It’s not exactly structured training like I used to do, but it was kinda close, and I was able to get into shape while still leaving time for other activities, a major goal. The balance has definitely been good for me.

The one bummer is that I’ve been working in creating a custom cycling shoe with a built in AFO all summer, thanks to a generous grant from . The goal of the equipment is to stabilize my knee and ankle better than my current solution of jamming a walking AFO into a too-big bike shoe. I hope it helps me stand on the pedals, which I currently can’t do effectively, and I’m also hoping it lets me better engage my left quad. Creating an orthosis like this — one that requires multiple providers to collaborate and for which there is no blueprint — takes time, and it sadly won’t be ready for this weekend. But, so it goes! I’ll rip it with the shoes I’ve got, just as I’ve been doing all summer!

I’m racing the 60-mile course at steamboat and will be at a number of events throughout the weekend. Hit me up if you’ll be at the race.

For the next few days, ill be trying to reduce distractions— the race will be here before you know it!

08/01/2022

This was an absolute high water mark for me as a bike racer. 8th place in the 2016 elite national championship points race with all my friends (all those that could stick it out through a four-hour rain delay, anyway!) cheering for me and waving Bernie fat heads.

We didn’t end up racing until 11pm or something that night, and the lack of motivation among some of the field definitely played in my favor, but I was also caught up in the middle of an Olympic-related grudge match that played out at 30 mph for 20 miles.

Maybe I should have known that was a peak for me, but the challenge I’ve always had with athletics is that one achievement leaves you to believe that further achievement is possible, so you keep working and dreaming and believing.

With going on at last week, I was thinking a lot about this race. Nationals always includes highs and lows, but I hope that everyone racing had something to be proud of and take away from the meet — or got some fuel for future goals!

07/28/2022

Despite my best efforts, I seem to be pretty allergic to capture, and these mundane moments are all I have to show from a super fun on Sunday.

This was the second race I've done since becoming a paraplegic e-biker. At the first race, I rode party pace, coming away feeling disappointed that I hadn't fully opened the throttle and emptied the tanks to see what my new body could still do. I'd been craving that chance since, and I'm super grateful FoCo's promoters had categories for both e-bikes and paracyclists, so I could line up with ~400 others at the start of the 53-mile race (another race I wanted to do this weekend told me that e-bikes were banned, even for paracyclists. Being told you're not welcome at a non-categorized gravel race sure does suck!).

On Sunday, I wanted to get into a peloton, feel out the race dynamics on gravel, test my fitness, remind myself how to fuel in a multi-hour event, and get some real-world data on racing an e-bike.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this: I was going to be racing with people on regular bikes, but I was also racing a para-cycling category, in which I was the only registrant. I wanted to use my motor to help me go fast and have fun, and since I wasn't actually racing anyone, I figured it wouldn't matter how much boost I used or didn't use. At the same time, though, I also wanted to be respectful of other athletes trying to race for their own result or personal achievement. I also didn't want to run on full turbo and kill my battery with 15 miles to go.

In the end, I used the motor the same way I do on the rides here in town, to keep up with whoever I was riding with. I ended up surfing the back of the groups I was with; giving me the chance to ride in the bunch without unfairly pacing anyone.

Sadly, I dropped my chain three times, which took me from the lead group to a series of successive groups behind, but I still completed the 56 miles in just about three hours, stopped to help someone who had crashed, and emptied both my tank and the bike's batteries along the way. I was pretty depleted at the finish and it was so awesome.

Captions in the comments below!

06/28/2022

It feels like a weird time for a vacation photo dump, considering that vacation ended with the desecration of the constitution (again) and the (I’m sure temporary but still extremely harmful) interruption Of the right to bodily autonomy for half of my fellow Americans. So, instead, I just wanted to share these two pics of me walking around in water and sand with no support at all for my paralyzed leg.

I love the beach and have been grateful to be able to visit the beach a few times since my injury, despite living in Colorado. Each time came with consideration stress about how I’d manage the bracing I need to walk without gettin it sandy, how I’d enter and exit the water, and how I’d feel the sand beneath my feet with shoes on.

There is no solution for the last question, but I am fortunate to be at a stage of my recovery where I can walk around with no bracing. I do that all the time at home, but typically never in the world.

That’s because my gait — which is pretty good with a brace on, considering that my leg is fu***ng paralyzed — falls apart without my brace. I drag my toe or trip over it, and my leg snaps straight in front of me and then down against the ground. It’s also not good for me: without meaningful perprioception to guide my muscles, I tend to lock my knee when I have no brace on. Over time, that could lead to hyper extension in the joint, and related damage.

But, last week, I sad “f**k it” a few times and walked down the beach with no support, or, as seen here, waded into the bay with my family (uncle and brother pictured here) to check out the shellfish scene.

I did also wear shoes onto the beach and took my trekking poles places I’d rather not have had them, and traveled with three braces (my daily driver, an old one to get sandy, and a super minimal one that doesn’t really support my joints, but can get wet) but so it goes. Maybe I won’t need them next summer, when I head back to the ocean, and when i hope women’s rights have been restored and codified into indelible law.

Can you tell from the pics which of my legs is paralyzed?

06/03/2022

To everyone racing the Friday night season opener tonight: go fast and turn left and have a great time! I miss being there so much, but my memories from so many nights at the track help me stay motivated to ride, exercise, and continually work on my body. Hopefully I’ll have the chance to ride on those banks again some time. Until then, I’m so glad you all are holding it down for me 🙌.

2019📸 by

05/28/2022

I was quite honored when reached out over the winter and asked me if I wanted to participate in as a member of a group of the first para-cyclists to participate in this gravel race, which is a fundraiser for . I immediately agreed to come and spent the whole winter riding my gravel bike on weekends and riding indoors to increase my fitness.

The last time I raced was two days before the assault that left me paraplegic in 2019. That was a track race at and my memories of that night are all positive: my friends were there, my legs were finally starting to come right after a season during which I’d mostly been off the back. I remember getting second in at least one race and feeling good on the way home.

Then it all changed. After getting injured, I wasn’t sure if I’d ride again and just assumed that even if I did ride, I’d never race. And I was fine with that; mostly satisfied with the experiences I’d had on road, gravel, cx, mountain, and, especially track bikes. The memories of that last night and countless others let me feel good about using my time to hike, lift weights, and tool around on an e-bike.

With all that — and nearly three years away from racing, I had to think back pretty far to remember how to pin a number last weekend and didn’t do a good job packing, but then everything came back; even my sand-riding skills.

The race last weekend was so fun. Pete and High Fives were so welcoming and accommodating to our crew of five and other racers were stoked to see us.

At the finish line, I confronted a familiar athletic feeling: wishing I’d been better prepared and had gone faster. Thanks to Pete for the invitation, for High Fives for facilitating the trip, to for the loaner bike (you can’t fly with an e-bike!), for for all she does to advance the cause of paracyclists so that we can be included in more races, and to , , and for helping to show me what’s possible and for joining me on this adventure!

Im so stoked for with in a few months, and maybe finding some other inclusive races before then! 🙌🙌👊❤️

05/14/2022

I feel like I haven’t posted enough cat pics lately, so here are Mettle and Betsy. I wasn’t allowed furry pets as a child, owing to crippling family allergies, so it wasn’t until 2019 that I finally realized my potential as a Big Cat.

It’s crazy to me, as a relatively new pet person, at how sensitive pets can be to what’s going on around them. I’ve been starting to pack ahead of moving in a few weeks and is freaking out. So much so that he wouldn’t eat dinner tonight. Hopefully he’ll still sleep by my feet as we come in to the home stretch. And, of course, I hope the cats like our new place. It has more light, but somehow fewer windows.

04/25/2022

There’s going to be a family backpacking trip in September. I haven’t been backpacking in a minute — specifically since 2017, when I was, uh, not paraplegic. So I figured I should start getting my body ready for the challenge and that hiking around with my preferred hip pack isn’t going to cut it.

So today I took my medicine ball hiking today. It weighs 20 pounds. We did four miles around the neighborhood trails. I figure I’ll have to be able to carry 40 pounds for 10 miles, but I’ve got a few months to get there!

04/06/2022

This mini adventure up Mayflower Gulch form a few weeks ago probably had the best ratio of effort to view of anything else have done lately.

I’ve hardly hiked since, as I’m trying to focus on riding bikes ahead of my first gravel race of the year. But hiking has probably been my favorite (re)discovery since my injury and I’m going to make sure to continue making time for it, even as bike season commences!

Jungle Room

10/20/2022

10/10/2022

08/26/2022

08/10/2022

08/01/2022

07/28/2022

06/28/2022

06/03/2022

05/28/2022

05/14/2022

04/25/2022

04/06/2022

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