A Ride with Adaptive Adventures

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“It can’t rain all the time.” - Eric Draven. It sure as hell seemed like it earlier today. Today was our weekly Wednesday Project Hero ride. This was one of the days when we rode in Denver’s Washington Park (2.25-mile loop) with our main sponsor, Adaptive Adventures. More Adaptive riders showed up on a rainy afternoon than Project Hero riders did. And it rained. Not a hard, Gilligan rain, but a nice, steady, somewhat chilly-but-entirely-tolerable rain. The entire ride. But, it turned out to be a nice, enjoyable ride with our community partners. I came here, however, to talk about our sponsor, Adaptive Adventures. Based in the Denver suburb of Westminster, Colorado, Adaptive Adventures is a national non-profit, whose mission is, (from their website) “Bringing progressive outdoor adventures to individuals with physical disabilities and their families, regardless of location, equipment needs or economic status.” Founded more than 25 years ago, Adaptive Adventures is the world’s only fully mobile recreation provider. The organization boasts multiple trailers full of various sports equipment, including adaptive bikes and cycling equipment, climbing walls and adaptive climbing equipment, kayaks and equipment, Dragon Boat racing equipment, etc. In addition to their local programs, these trailers head off to various cities around the country, including Puerto Rico, holding clinics and bringing outdoor adventure to folks that might otherwise not have the opportunity to experience the fun of said activities. Essentially, anyone, an amputee, someone with TBI, someone with balance issues, etc, can show up to a free clinic and Adaptive’s enthusiastic crew will ensure they are fit with the proper equipment (which sometimes itself has to be adapted to a particular user; they have some really cool stuff!) and that they have a safe, great time accomplishing something they might have previously thought not possible. Their impact was noticeable today, when more Adaptive folks than Project Hero folks showed up on a grey gloomy day to ride bicycles in the rain. https://adaptiveadventures.org/