Robert Wein is back on a bike seat for the first time in a decade. Wein was one of five Kanata cyclists hit by a van driver in 2009.
Now a new invention called the walking bike is helping him and about twenty other mobility-challenged people prepare for a 2km ride during Race Weekend in Ottawa.
Learning something new is never easy, especially after the kind of traumatic injuries Robert Wein suffered. “I was basically broken,” he says.
It will be ten years this July since a van plowed into him and four other cyclists. Wein was the worst hit; he was given a 50/50 chance of surviving and then told it was unlikely he would ever walk again. This athlete, who had done triathlons, did not take that news sitting down.
Today, for the first time since the accident, he is sitting in a bicycle seat — and remembers the feeling well. “It’s been ten years,” he says with a smile, “and boy, I felt the pain in my bottom.”
It is training day outside LiquidGym in Ottawa’s west end. Owner Karen Snyder has bought fifty of these walking bikes, called Alinkers after Dutch inventor Barbara Alink, and is getting the group ready for the 2km run at Race Weekend.
She says it is remarkable to watch their reaction on the bikes after years of immobility. “If you have someone who moves with a walker, very slowly, and they sit down and have that freedom, they start laughing and have this sense of joy. It’s unbelievable.”
Kelda Whalen has not been able to get on a bike in 35 years. She has dystonia, a neurological disorder that causes involuntary muscle contractions, repetitive movements and abnormal postures. “I used to love to bicycle when I had balance,” says Whalen, who lives near the canal, “but I don’t have balance anymore. Now I’ll be able to do that.”
Snyder says the advantage of the walking bike over the walker is that it is better for the back and the posture — and better socially, because it gives people eye-to-eye contact.
For Mary Bolt, who has osteoporosis and has had two hip surgeries, it has given her the freedom to go where she wants. “I take this everywhere with me,” she says as she zooms along, “to the grocery store, to the mall, even to a bar.”
For Robert Wein, that sense of freedom makes him believe anything is possible. “This is basically, it’s heaven,” he says.
The group has been meeting every Wednesday for weeks, practising on the bikes, preparing for the race and fully intending to finish it.