Gordon Broome says learning to use the adapted mountain bike was a "steep learning curve". (Supplied: Gordon Broome) Gordon Broome has always been an adventurer, and more recently, an avid mountain bike rider.
In 2021, he experienced a spinal cord injury that resulted in him becoming a quadriplegic.
"Before my injury, [I was] just big into the outdoors. I spent most of my life and my time out in the mountains just doing stuff," he says.
As part of his rehabilitation, Gordon went to a spinal cord injury resort in Sydney where he first tried an adapted mountain bike.
Using the same adapted gear that helped him get back into mountain biking after his life-changing injury, Gordon and his friend Max Oulhen are helping more people access the Tasmanian wilderness. Getting back on the bike
Adapted mountain bikes are designed to give people who use wheelchairs or who have altered body function access to mountain biking experiences. Gordon’s bike has pedal assist, hand cranks, and three wheels: two at the front and one powered wheel at the back. (Supplied: Gordon Broome) Gordon says the bikes are designed to have "controls that quadriplegics can use, without hand functions".
On his first try, Gordon says he "didn’t quite make it far around the foyer". "But that was kind of the first step back into mountain biking again, after a mountain biking accident."It wasn’t long before he purchased his own bike and started testing it out at the Kaoota Tramway track, a 6-kilometre double-track trail near his […]
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