Ryan St.Lawrence Shreds through Arcade Belt Goal number 4

Goal 4: Organize and shred an Adaptive Heli-Biking trip in Retallack BC

With the crazy times, we are now experiencing it is important for us to look back and take a moment to reflect on our Athletes who are leaving their comfort zone in exchange for adventure and progression of self and sport.

Ryan St.Lawrence is an Athlete who immediately comes to mind when thinking about progression. The young New Hampshire local was a passionate mountain biker, who would spend his time focused on pushing his riding. Unfortunately, he took a bad crash while riding a Highlands Mountain bike park, breaking his T4 vertebrae, leaving him paralyzed.

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After learning of his new reality, Ryan quickly realized that his spirit for adventure and love for mountain biking hadn’t gone anywhere. He was still passionate about getting out and experiencing the joy of mountain biking he just needed to find a new way of riding. Trails where still there, riding buddies were still there he just needed to get himself back.

Ryan spent time in hospitals and physical therapies recovering and always had the plan to come back and ride. It wasn’t going to be the exact same riding but it was going to be awesome. The thing with a life-altering injury is if you put your mind to finding ways to do what you had loved before your accident you can do it. It may take time and some engineering but if you want it bad enough, you make it happen.

After being released from rehabilitation, Ryan did the research and built himself up a bucket mountain bike. He installed a sit-ski seat and an electric motor onto a downhill mountain bike. This allowed him to get around the trails independently with a bit of assistance getting in and out of the bike.

After getting used to the new bike and way of riding Ryan was back to biking with friends again. The feeling of ripping trail was still there. After some time riding the bucket bike a new bike was created by a company out of Calgary, Alberta that would allow Ryan to ride completely independently. Bowhead Corp created an adaptive Mountain bike, unlike any other adaptive bike before it. The throttle powered bike has 7.5 inches of active plush rear suspension as well as 7 inches of the front wheel suspension that is able to articulate and move independently, opening up many trails that had previously been inaccessible to any other adaptive mountain bike.

The combination of the new technology of the Bowhead and Ryan’s bucket bike most the trails he rode before his injury, were now once again, his playground.

Now that Ryan had progressed his riding to the point that he was back riding. He was ready to explore some new areas and push the boundaries of adaptive mountain biking. He formulated a plan to do something no one had done before, he was going to go Heli biking in the rough, raw, and, rugged mountains of British Columbia at  Retallack Lodge in the Selkirk mountains.

A lot of planning went into this idea, but it was going to go down. The plan was to make it to the Selkirks and spend 2 days of riding. One day of riding the lower trails out of the Retallack Lodge and on the other day the plan was to hop into a helicopter and ride from the top of the mountain.

As soon as Ryan arrived at the beautiful Retallack lodge it was on.

Day 1: wake up and get into a helicopter.

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This is how they got Ryan’s Bowhead Reach adaptive mountain bike to the top of the mountain.

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Ryan made the most of the way down the mountain.  Taking time to appreciate the views and surrounding mountains. He made it all the way down on his adaptive three-wheeled mountain bike. Making him the first person to ever do an adaptive mountain bike at Retallack Lodge.

Day 2: The second day was spent on his Bucket mountain bike. Riding some of the 100 Kilometers of trails Retallack had to offer.

It is amazing to see a new sport being progressed so hard and taken to such an extreme level. We applaud Ryan for his courage and desire to adventure and improve. We cannot wait to see what he comes up with next.

Arcade Belt Goal 4: Organize and shred an Adaptive Heli-Biking trip in Retallack BC

-Complete August 1 2019

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