Ride For Fives | Recap

Ride For Fives

High Five Thunder Mountain Bike Park for a successful 1st Annual Bike Day Supporting Adaptive Athletes! From the Silent auction, Ticket sales, online fundraising campaign and an online auction the event raised $5,500 for mountain action sports atheltes who have sustained a life-altering injury. Thank you all!

Image uploaded from iOS (11)

Photo credit Andrew Santoro IG @andrewsantoro_

Image uploaded from iOS (12)

Photo credit Andrew Santoro IG @andrewsantoro_

There was nothing but smiles, laughs, and party laps – three of my favorite things – all for the sake of adaptive athletes, the High Fives Foundation, and me. To know that so many people stand behind (pun intended) adaptive athletes is incredible to me.

#HighFivesAthlete Lindsey Runkel

#HighFivesAthlete Lindsey Runkel shares what the event meant to her!

It is extremely hard for me to put into words what this past weekend and Thunder Mountain Bike Park’s Ride for Fives event meant to me. The fact that I was able to help put on an event, at one of my favorite mountains, for my absolute favorite non-profit, the High Fives Foundation, was amazing in and of itself. The support that riders and sponsors gave to this event felt like support being given directly to me. It felt as if every single rider was there to support me and to tell me to keep on fighting against this injury to live the most fulfilled life. It validated every effort I have put in in the past three years to return my life to normalcy and continue pursuing mountain biking along with all of the other wild endeavors I have chased.

It makes my heart full knowing that we had an absolutely rad day at the mountain and that our joy will be passed on to another adaptive athlete somewhere. Because of all of the support for this event and all of the fun that was had on October 7th, an adaptive athlete will be given the opportunity to get back out onto the slopes or to experience the joy of a High Fives adaptive surf camp. I can’t really put into words what experiencing the joy of this day with new friends and old and knowing that it was all for the sake of helping someone else in my situation really means to me. My heart is too full for words and I am so stoked to continue on with this event, to grow this event, and to continue helping athletes realize their potential despite a life changing injury. Thank you to everyone who donated and who came out to be a part of this special day. My gratitude is about as high as my mood as I hit Thunder Mountain’s big jump trail Hawleywood for the first time at the event…and that is extremely high.

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A Special thanks to #HighFivesAthlete Lindsey Runkel, Gabe Porter-Henry & David Sutkaitis for their hard work and determination to make this event possible. Can’t wait till next year!

You can purchase photos from the event by Andrew Santoro HERE

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