Bicycle

As Jazz has been growing up there have been certain things that each of us has longed for her to be able to do because it would mean that she would have lived experiences that every child gets to experience.  For my mom, it was swimming.  Jazz officially swam at age 2.  For Jake, it was playing an instrument.  Last school year she learned to play the clarinet.  For me it was playing dolls with friends.  She started trying to do this last year, and now does it successfully.  For my husband it was playing chess, which she can now do with no cues needed for the directions of all the pieces.  And for my dad it was riding a two-wheeler bicycle all by herself.

Jazz got her fist push bike type toy when she was a year old, but she did not figure out how to ride it until she was about 19 months old.  She did not ride a tricycle successfully until she was five.  She grew out of a bike with training wheels before she had it mastered, or even had the chance to move up out of the training wheels.  This was when my dad's heart began to break, but he did not give up.

He looked on hundreds of websites to find training wheels that could tolerate larger bikes and a greater amount of weight, after the old training wheels broke on a bigger bike.  He installed the ones he ordered from the internet, and they immediately bent after one ride attempt.  Now remember that these have been breaking or bending on a child with TBI, so every time this happened, she lost her mind and her fears of bikes grew since she would inevitably end up on the ground and scraped up.

As an engineer, it drove him crazy that these products would not work and that he could not figure out how to design an adaptation to her current bike that would make it safe for her.  He figured out that she could not only not balance the bike on her own, but the way that bikes steer and turn also was confusing her.  Think about it.  When riding a bike you have to peddle (this is what took the tricycles so long),  balance, steer, watch, adjust speed, mount.... It really goes on and on when doing task analysis for this activity.

One day he tried sitting on the seat while she sat on an adapted seat he positioned her on the frame.  This worked great, except when she decided to try to put her feet down during a turn.  Once again, down she went and the screaming began not only at the bike, but at dad since it was obviously his fault (at least in her eyes) and at the ground that jumped up and tried to kill her.

She then got onto one of her small bikes that she had grown out of long ago and started walking and gliding on it.  She would push off with her feet and cruise along as mom had to chase her and hold onto the back of the bike.  If she let go, the screaming would begin.

Then in early October 2011 we went to a sports festival that is put on annually for people with a variety of disabilities.  They offer a wide variety of sports and they adapt them so every person can access them.  This year, they had adapted bikes.  For the first time ever, Jazz rode a bike.  We were crying and she was shrieking with joy.  The only thing missing, was dad.

Adapted Bike

We also had no idea how we were going to pay for such a unique piece of adapted equipment.  But the joy in her eyes and the joy in the eyes of other, made us fill out an interest form.  We were just so proud of her.

On Oct. 11 2011 Jazz went for one of her bike push and glide walks with mom and dad as part of dad's birthday celebration.  Suddenly, much to everyone's shock, she began to ride her two wheeled unadapted bike.

My dad posted the following on facebook that night:  "Thank you to everybody for sending me happy birthday wishes. The icing on my birthday cake (so to speak) was for Jazz to ride her bicycle (yes a 2 wheeler) without help for the very first time tonight!!!! What a lucky dad I am; that's for sure and for certain."

Jazz's first ever ride on a 2-wheeler captured on dad's cell phone.

She has been able to ride ever since.  And was even able to graduate up into the correct sized bike.  It was probably her success on the adapted bike that built her confidence and helped her process all the skills necessary to ride that allowed her to finally ride a bike and achieve the dream Dad had for her.

Much Love!

For more information about adapted bikes please visit Freedom Concepts: http://www.freedomconcepts.com/

For more information about the Disability Sports Festival: http://disabilitysportsfestival.org/