Gordon Broome has always been an adventurer, and more recently, an avid mountain bike rider.
In 2021, he experienced a spinal cord injury that resulted in him becoming a quadriplegic.
"Before my injury, [I was] just big into the outdoors. I spent most of my life and my time out in the mountains just doing stuff," he says.
As part of his rehabilitation, Gordon went to a spinal cord injury resort in Sydney where he first tried an adapted mountain bike.
Using the same adapted gear that helped him get back into mountain biking after his life-changing injury, Gordon and his friend Max Oulhen are helping more people access the Tasmanian wilderness.
Getting back on the bike
Adapted mountain bikes are designed to give people who use wheelchairs or who have altered body function access to mountain biking experiences.
Gordon's bike has pedal assist, hand cranks, and three wheels: two at the front and one powered wheel at the back. (Supplied: Gordon Broome)
Gordon says the bikes are designed to have "controls that quadriplegics can use, without hand functions".
On his first try, Gordon says he "didn't quite make it far around the foyer". "But that was kind of the first step back into mountain biking again, after a mountain biking accident."
It wasn't long before he purchased his own bike and started testing it out at the Kaoota Tramway track, a 6-kilometre double-track trail near his house just south of Hobart.
"That was really cool, just to get out on a trail that my wheelchair definitely wouldn't take me down, and so close to home … to get back and explore old tracks in a new bike and a new body," he says.
After a year and a half of practice, Gordon has competed in an adapted mountain bike riding competition in Newcastle, NSW. (Supplied: Bonnie Hall)
"I don't go as fast as I used to, for sure.
"[But] in the last four to five months, I've definitely been letting the brakes off a bit and I'm starting to pick up some speed again, which has been pretty fun.
"I don't know if my family or my partner would agree to that, but I love it. It's awesome."
Shared love for adventure
Max Oulhen is Gordon's support rider. He's been working to provide people with physical support in outdoor sports and activities since his wife, Rubie, became a quadriplegic in 2019.
Mountain biker and adventure lover in his own right, Max says that Gordon initially contacted him to find out about outdoor accessibility in Tasmania.
Riding together helped Till Gallagher, Gordon Broome and Max Oulhen form lifelong friendships. (Supplied: Gordon Broome)
Later, Gordon asked if he wanted to go on a ride together, and Max says they had "heaps of fun".
"I really enjoy making everything that I can accessible for people … that's the part of it I really like, just to try to [do] whatever people want to actually do outdoors," Max says.
Gordon says that depending on someone's body function, they might need to try different things to figure out what works.
"It took me over a year to get to a point when I could actually ride it on a trail, a single-track trail where I was proficient and could be independent with it," he says.
"It takes a long time, so I want to provide mentoring and coaching to others learning to ride these bikes, like the best method of learning and the best way to ride them."
Making the outdoors accessible
Gordon and Max noticed a lack of services supporting people to access the outdoors in Tasmania, which led to the idea of turning what they were doing for fun into a service for other people.
"It can be quite tricky for people with mobility issues to find support workers that are happy to piggyback them around to get to places that your wheelchair can't, or to physically support you," Gordon says.
That's why they decided to form a support service that can provide physical support, mentoring, and peer support to people on outdoor adventures.
"[It's] the physical support … and I can offer mentorship or peer support, can come out with you on adventures, or riding, kayaking, hiking, that kind of stuff," Gordon says.
"[We want to] help people get out into the bush, out into the wild."
ParaQuad Tasmania access advocate Richard Jones says accessibility in much of the Tasmanian outdoors is tough due to hilly terrain and few tracks made big or flat enough for wheelchair use.
"The space is quite limited, in just the ability to be able to access something completely level. And as we know, when we're talking about nature, nothing's set and level," he says.
Richard Jones says few tracks in Tasmania are fully wheelchair accessible. (Supplied: Richard Jones)
Richard says what Gordon and Max are doing has huge potential in Tasmania, as it becomes known for its mountain bike trails.
And while there is still a lot of work to be done, he believes opportunities like adaptive mountain bikes can "open up the world" for people.
Gordon and Max focus their services on people who use wheelchairs but are open to supporting anyone.
Source: ABC