Nigel's Personal Experience of Cycling
Nigel (on the right) at Alyn Waters
Tandem Cycling for the blind!
My carer and I arrived at the park in good spirits. I was keen to see what the tandem bikes I had been told about looked like. That was a problem straight away because as well as being a wheelchair user I am blind. My carer explained to me what the bikes looked like. They had two seats, the seats were situated side by side (a bit like a paddle boat). We both had handlebars to hold on to but mine didn't move. I think my carer Gary was quite happy about that, he said that if my handle bars could steer then he would have to check his life insurance policy. We both had our own set of pedals, mine were like normal bike pedals but the ones on the other side were fixed so that even if you took your feet off they still went round. Gary said he felt silly because every time he wanted me to pedal he had to ride along with his legs in the air. I wish I could have seen that ! The pedals had straps to keep my feet in which were a big help.
We put on the safety helmets and sat on the bike. Then we did a test lap of a small course to check everything was ok. Then we were off cycling around the country park. The course was quite challenging with different gradients and turns. Every time we were biking up to someone we had to ring the bell to warn them. Trust me with my carers driving they needed warning quite a lot. It was really nice to get out and do a bit of exercise and I haven't been on a bike for many years. It's nice that someone that uses a wheelchair can enjoy things that able bodied people do.
We had done one lap of the course and my hand slipped from the handle bars. When I put my hand back I realised that for some reason my handlebars could now move. The bike made a sudden change of direction and my carer let out a sought of scream and some words I didn't quite hear. Something about a "tree" and "let go of my handlebars". The ground got very rough and we were bouncing around all over the place! "Let go Nigel" he screamed so I let go of them and the brakes went on, then we returned to level ground. I didn't mean to grab the wrong handlebars by mistake but it was fun scaring Gary half to death! Afterwards he explained to me that we had gone a bit off course and were heading straight for the biggest oak tree he had ever seen.
He did let me steer for a while afterwards though which was fun. We finished our two laps of the park which was enough for both of us and then we retired for some well earned lunch at the park cafe. All in all we had a lot of fun on the bikes and we made it back in one piece. The bikes are a must for anybody wanting to try something a bit different.