Meet Steve, a man who's brought life-altering adversity to its knees with the sheer power of resilience and a passion for cycling. A severe accident could have stolen his dreams, but instead, became the catalyst for an inspiring journey from battling a rare disease and multiple surgeries, through arduous rehabilitation to being a leading voice for disabled cyclists. Immerse yourself in the captivating account of his fight against overwhelming odds to reclaim his life, and marvel as he shares his extraordinary experiences of running with forearm crutches, hand cycling, and taking on triathlons.
During our time together, Steve takes us along on his journey to the rehabilitation center, where he used mental toughness and stoic philosophy to overcome adversity. His tale is all the more powerful as he shares his inspirational progress from taking four steps out of the hospital to daringly steering a $50 pawn shop bike towards the intimidating challenge of a triathlon. Steve's relentless determination saw him not just reclaiming his title as an athlete, but also rediscovering his passion for cycling and mountain biking.
As our conversation weaves its way through Steve's experiences, he talks about his journey to the Paralympics, the unique challenges of competing against able-bodied athletes, and winning a state championship. Listen as he shares his insights into how he managed these challenges, how prioritizing his training regime became crucial, and how he's worked hard to include more disabled cyclists in the Cycle 66 event. This is not just a story of a man who dared to dream big and achieve bigger, but a testament to the transformative power of sports and the indomitable human spirit. Brace yourself for a riveting hour filled with lessons on resilience, endurance, and hope.
Instagram @splovelace
Meet Steve, a man who's brought life-altering adversity to its knees with the sheer power of resilience and a passion for cycling. A severe accident could have stolen his dreams, but instead, became the catalyst for an inspiring journey from battling a rare disease and multiple surgeries, through arduous rehabilitation to being a leading voice for disabled cyclists. Immerse yourself in the captivating account of his fight against overwhelming odds to reclaim his life, and marvel as he shares his extraordinary experiences of running with forearm crutches, hand cycling, and taking on triathlons.
During our time together, Steve takes us along on his journey to the rehabilitation center, where he used mental toughness and stoic philosophy to overcome adversity. His tale is all the more powerful as he shares his inspirational progress from taking four steps out of the hospital to daringly steering a $50 pawn shop bike towards the intimidating challenge of a triathlon. Steve's relentless determination saw him not just reclaiming his title as an athlete, but also rediscovering his passion for cycling and mountain biking.
As our conversation weaves its way through Steve's experiences, he talks about his journey to the Paralympics, the unique challenges of competing against able-bodied athletes, and winning a state championship. Listen as he shares his insights into how he managed these challenges, how prioritizing his training regime became crucial, and how he's worked hard to include more disabled cyclists in the Cycle 66 event. This is not just a story of a man who dared to dream big and achieve bigger, but a testament to the transformative power of sports and the indomitable human spirit. Brace yourself for a riveting hour filled with lessons on resilience, endurance, and hope.
Instagram @splovelace
What is up? All of you beautiful people Change the intro a little bit. I know I'm getting tired of I'm sure you're getting tired of hearing me say the exact same thing every time so we thought we'd change it a little bit this time. I just want to say thank you so much for tuning in for another episode. I say it every single time that this one is awesome. But this one is awesome.
Speaker 1:Steve has an incredible story to share and towards the end of the episode, we kind of find out that this story of his life that he shares is truly the tip of the iceberg. This episode is really truly about being resilient and pushing through and how the bike really does save Steve's life every single day and gives him a purpose and a greater cause. And he really is on such a cool mission right now with his life and trying to spread his story all around and bring awareness to so many different things. So please tune in and listen to this one all the way through. It's not just about riding a bicycle. It's so much more than that. It's such a human story. So I really hope you appreciate this one. Steve reached out to me and said, hey, I got a really cool story to share. So if you have a really cool story to share or someone you know does, please, please, please, let me know. We would love to share that. Also, we are continuing to look for sponsors to help spread the word of cycling Oklahoma and to continue the growth of this and do some really cool things and fun things with some different events and promoters and things like that. But those things take money and so I'm not looking to make a fortune out of this thing. I am looking to just put it all right back into the cycling community. So if anybody wants to step up and help out with the cause, I would love to chat with you and see what we could work out.
Speaker 1:So I just want to give a little bit of a remembrance right now in this episode for Kerto. Many of you in the Oklahoma City cycling community knew Kerto Dykes and was an incredible man, and he lost his battle with cancer recently and he touched so many lives. So I just wanted to say something about him and to remember him, and I know there will be some rides coming soon, but I think it's fitting with this episode that we take a second to remember Kerto and then the others out there that are battling some crazy things. So thank you guys for tuning in, thank you guys for listening. I can't say how much I appreciate you and the people to say it like oh my gosh, I love this episode, like it really does. Well, my heart makes me happy to be doing this and sharing people's stories.
Speaker 1:So if you haven't listened to some of the last episodes, please go back. We've had some really great ones recently, but I will not keep you from this amazing story and life journey of resilience. So people love each other. Go play bikes, have fun, enjoy life, make memories that's what we're here to do. So thanks for tuning in. Cool, all right, steve, we are up and running.
Speaker 1:And first I want to say thank you for reaching out to me, because I always put it out there on every episode hey, if anyone wants to be on here or anyone knows someone that wants to be on here and very, very rarely I do get recommendations like, hey, you should reach out to this person and very rarely does someone reach out to me and say, hey, I have a cool story I'd love to tell. But I appreciate you reaching out and being patient for us to coordinate this. We try to record whenever I was sick and all those kinds of things. Thanks for having the patience, but thank you for reaching out to me, because when I started digging into your story and I watched your YouTube video, holy cow, we have a story to share. Good, good.
Speaker 1:I think it's going to be one of those ones where people that you've ridden with forever in group rides are going to be like I had no idea, Like what the heck? So I think these are the stories that I love and these are the things that I'm like super excited about whenever I started this podcast, because I'm like I have no clue what someone's story is writing next to me. I just see Steve on group rides. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think it's a really open some people's eyes of what's going on currently and what's gone on in the past. So kick it off. I want you to just give everybody a quick elevator pitch of who you are and where you're at in these days.
Speaker 2:Okay yeah, I'm originally from Tulsa and went to the University of Oklahoma, graduated in 1990, fell in love with this area and decided to stay around. Currently I live in Edmond. I'm retired. I'm medically retired. I've got a rare disease that causes me problems and prevents me from working full time. But I steal cycle and it's been a passion from very, very early on, all the way up through my 61st birthday, which I celebrated this last year.
Speaker 1:So Are you a you're? We're going to get into your how you started in this crazy world, but are you mainly a road cyclist now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I've got a gravel bike and I've got a TT bike. I still do triathlons, but I partner with people to do the run for me because my legs are starting to give out and you know we do a team time trial or team triathlon. But I'm working on running with hand crutches, forearm crutches, and that's kind of my next evolution. That's where I can get back to doing triathlon all by myself again.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Do you think you foresee possibly doing a hand cycling on the run?
Speaker 2:Eventually. Yeah, yeah, I've got a. Well, that would be a hand cycle on the bike and the forearm crutches on the run and then course to swim. I can handle. Right, I broke it down body yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I had the incredible pleasure of working with the challenge athlete team over the last handful of years and the we had the able body athlete and the challenge athlete has several palsy so he wasn't able to do a lot. We met some amazing other challenged athletes over the years and several different Ironmans, and we become friends with them and watch their journeys and heard their stories. And the people that do that are, you know, are in wheelchairs full time. The fact that they like can do any kind of like long distance endurance event is wildly impressive. Yes, and I'm like oh, how hard is this? I made it about a minute and my shoulders were just blown to pieces. How in the world do these people do an Ironman with their arms? It's crazy, yeah.
Speaker 2:You have to start small right and we go out there with this bicycle mentality that I can just crank it out. I got the heart, I got the cardiovascular system, but now you're driving different muscles that just want to do that.
Speaker 1:So yeah, Well, I'm interested to follow that journey. Clearly it's not a journey you want to take, but I love that you're going to keep it going and keep like using it as an excuse to live instead of an excuse to settle on the couch and be miserable. So I love that and I have a feeling that you have that mentality because of what you've gone through to this point.
Speaker 2:I have yeah, I faced my fair share of adversity in life, and it's only tended to make me stronger.
Speaker 1:So which is an amazing story and an amazing person like personality and trade to half, because that's not always the case for a lot of people. So I think we should just jump right into that. I mean, I don't even know how to start this, like it's not how did you get started in endurance sports? But it is how you got it started in endurance, so why don't you just you know, I'll let you kind of lead here, because you know how to tell your story better than I do- Okay, well, I mean to really encompass what makes me a triathlete.
Speaker 2:What made me want to be a triathlete? It's all my inner strength that I had growing up as a kid. At four years old, my father abandoned our family. I saw him a handful of times after he was abusive. He was an alcoholic, so that tended to, you know, strengthen me inside. My mom nearly died when I was six years old. We were sent off to live with our grandparents, so the house was broken up. That made me stronger, came back and had my 14 year old angst as a kid, got shipped off to my grandparents again. But that was the pivot point for me. That turned me into a man. It took all my young anger out of my body and it focused me on athletics. That's when I started doing everything Baseball, basketball, hockey, golf. I was doing everything to get all that energy out.
Speaker 2:But the real crux of my story started after I graduated high school, went to the University of Oklahoma, finished up a miserable year. My freshman year. I got a 1.0 and a 2.0 my second semester. Yes, that's impressive. That takes a lot of work to do that. Yeah, I was on double secret academic probation for pretty much my entire college career.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness, that summer my grandfather had passed away and he had played a pivotal role in my life, turning me into a man, giving me a lot of my core values, and so I went back to the family farm to live with my grandmother to help her out.
Speaker 2:While I was there, I was cutting firewood to make a little bit of extra money, and on one particular day in November actually November 30th a friend and I were cutting down a massive tree. It was probably 30 plus inches across and it did what they call a barber chair, and I had no logging experience. But this is the most dangerous thing you can encounter when you're cutting a tree down. And essentially what happened was the tree had split in half and the branches had fallen down and as we're cutting on the part that's still attached to the ground and this is no lie I was looking up at the tree going. How bad would that hurt if somebody got caught between those two halves? And literally the next thing I knew, I woke up and I have these two halves, one of my front, one of my back.
Speaker 1:How does it do that? So when it's stuck like that and you cut it, how do you? How does it pull you into that wedge?
Speaker 2:It actually shot back. It was all the force that was pushing back on it and it was just the potential energy that it had stored up in that particular position and the bottom half just kicked back Not my friend down, that was there with me to the ground. I guess it knocked him out. It obviously knocked me out and I just it took me a while to really figure out what was going on. I mean, my head was spinning, I could see stars and eventually I figured out that I had this half to my tree. My hand was stuck across my chest and I, as I peeled it away and I was trying to press the tree open, I could feel the bones crushing my hand and my wrist. Another little inventory thing I was feeling around in my mouth with my tongue and notice that the roof of my mouth had been split open and then all of a sudden I started spitting teeth out and then eventually I raised to my head and my forehead was fractured.
Speaker 2:But the biggest revelation was I'm sitting here with this tree. It's pressing against me, I'm having a very difficult time breathing and I noticed that I have no pain in my legs. So I reach down and I can't feel my legs. I'm paralyzed. Now most people would be freaking out at this moment, but I was very, very stoic and I don't know why I had this sense of calm about me. But I did and eventually my friend woke up, saw what he had to deal with and I can only imagine Seeing your best friend trapped in this tree and we were literally in the middle of nowhere. So there was no help to be had. There were no cell phones, we could not make an emergency call, we had no CB radio in the truck. So he had started trying to cut me out and as he was cutting on the half that was to my front, the chainsaw got stuck. So he's got a run for for help and he tries to go and start my grandfather's truck. And it was just a series of events at this point where the truck flooded. So now he has to run. And then the nearest house was about half a mile away. He ran to this house. No one was home. The next nearest house was three miles. So he takes off on a 5k impromptu trying to save his friend and Meanwhile I'm just here. I mean I can't do anything. It's just an inventory assessment of what's going on in and out of consciousness.
Speaker 2:Eventually, my friend runs into my name my uncle's Hired hand that worked on his farm. He was just leaving for town as he had pulled in with Army Corps of Engineers that had picked him up along the way, grabbed the chainsaw, came back and started to cut me out. But Once they got me cut out, the dilemma was they knew that I had something going on with my back, so they held me in position Until the ambulance got there, which would. It was beyond two hours before I was loaded up into an ambulance. The first hospital we went to was Wagner. They could do nothing for me, so they shipped me off into Tulsa, and it was in Tulsa when the revelation that I had this severe trauma to my lumbar spine that had paralyzed me and I was told that I would never walk again.
Speaker 2:But I was 20 years old, I was bulletproof and I knew that I was gonna walk out of that hospital. And I told them that I was gonna walk out of the hospital and, lo and behold, I spent three and a half months in the hospital convalescing. I had my face had been split straight down the middle from the impact side impact of the tree I used. My heart crushed, my wrist Decimated, three limb bar vertebrae.
Speaker 2:And we're not talking just linear fractures, we're talking explosive fractures, the way this tree hit me and the force that it had on me. The only thing that I can attribute to is it's a miracle I did not walk out Paralyzed and it's a miracle that I walked at it all. I mean, it was a, it was a fearsome accident and and so Three and a half months later I Managed four steps on crutches out of that hospital and it was the. That was my finish line. Yeah, I mean, I started that journey in the middle of that field with that tree around me. When those doctors told me that I would never walk again, I was like you know what? Nothing's gonna stop me.
Speaker 1:So you were in the hospital. How many surgeries did you have while you were there?
Speaker 2:Oh, wow well, the lucky thing is I. There were two doctors that stepped up to do my spine surgery. Nobody wanted to touch me. There was a neurologist and an orthopedic surgeon that stepped up and said, look, we're gonna give him a chance, and the surgery that they did was Medieval. I mean, they did their best and that's the reason that I was there for three and a half months, but that was the primary surgery that I had. Then I had the Reconstructive face surgery at surgery on my wrist and then I had Another couple surgeries on my face where I had my mandible Sutured shut, had to go back in and rip all that hardware out after six or eight weeks and Out of all those I have so many questions about this part, yeah, in those surgeries, which one?
Speaker 1:because I think, I think I know which one would be, but I think would be the worst, but which one of those injuries and or surgeries was like the most frustrating or the most painful out of that?
Speaker 2:well, the the spine surgery was probably the one that Was the most excruciating, but it got me out. I was in the ICU for a little over two weeks, you know. Got me out of the ICU, got me into a regular unit and I could have more people coming in and out. So the benefit of that surgery far away the pain that I was in. Plus, I was on copious amounts of morphine, yeah, so you know I was in and out of a Good high for the majority of my early time in the hospital. Wow, I said good, hi, it was a, you know, no highlight that is good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you were at least not aware of all the things that were going on, oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, whenever you started to get like Feeling back in the legs.
Speaker 2:How long it was that after the surgery, oh it was probably Close to a month, okay, and it was so, so painful. When that started happening and it was Kind of a flute my mom was there visiting and I had a sheet draped over me and all of a sudden she saw my toe twitch. Yeah, I miss. Like it was out of a movie. Can you do that again? I'm like what did I do? And you know, there it was. And then from that point forward it just started slowly migrating and Nerves heal at one millimeter a day. So it takes a long time for nerves to heal and Mine was. The paralysis was all due to the swelling and all that bone that was pressing up against my spinal cord after that accident.
Speaker 1:Interesting. So what was it? And so, but it was painful when you were getting the nerve back. Oh, yeah, yeah, interesting. But was it whenever you finally were able to like I want to move my toe and we're able to move it? Was it just like? I mean, it has to be the mic the most your Foreic like wow feeling yeah, yeah, oh, it was.
Speaker 2:It was an aha moment that I knew it. I mean, I just, you know, my faith was so strong and I knew that this was gonna happen and whatever pain I was going to endure would be worth it. But I will tell you that it was that's where I really learned how to deal with pain. Oh yeah, I mean, it's either succumb to it or you use it to your benefit, and I used it to my benefit.
Speaker 1:Okay, sorry to interrupt. So so now you've taken your steps out of the, out of the hospital, you've achieved goal number one. Yep, where do you go from here when you get home? Because now it's, you went in Instantly and you come out with a completely new normal. How do you even face that next day of, like man, what? How do I take a shower? How do I prepare food? How do I, you know, get to the store? I mean, how does that look when you come out?
Speaker 2:well, initially I was out for a very short period of time with my family before I got shipped off to a rehabilitation center in Oak Moge and this place was a complete hole. It was a state-run facility and they were actually old POW. They took the Quantor barracks from back in World War two where they housed German prisoners that they had taken in, I think, from the Africa Corps. When they got, when they surrendered, they brought them basically to middle America. Are you gonna go here, right, weird, yeah, yeah. And the ironic thing is I was there for three and a half months. Two years later they condemned those buildings. That just tells you the quality of my accommodations. But you know, even after three and a half months there, I still, once I left, I was barely able to shuffle across the floor. I could get to the shower, I could clean myself and one of the daily tasks that we had to do to live in the independent ward was Bathe and and close ourselves and then clean, keep our area clean to make our bed every day, make it to all our or all our physical therapy, occupational therapy and the classes that we had to be in, and I was able to do that. I was able to push through all the pain and you know my mountain of pills that I was on to get all that done. But Once I got out, I see you know I wasn't running a marathon at that point I was barely shuffling across the floor.
Speaker 2:And if that was really everything from that point forward was Coach Steve, it was all internalized and I just kept. Every day was a new finish line. I would push myself further and further and further, and I think that's what really. I was never an Exceptional athlete, but I was a good athlete in that I could do pretty much anything, but the one thing that I had was I mean, it's almost reflective of the movie Rudy where, if I could put your heart and some of my players bodies I'm five, seven hundred and forty pounds. I'm not a big guy, but I'm tougher than you can imagine and it's as a result of everything that I've been through in my life. But that's really. My superpower is dealing with adversity, and what I've realized is that it's not the adversity how bad it is, whatever it is the case may be it's how you respond to it that truly matters, because that will set the stage for what's to come, in a good way or in a bad way.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's a true. I don't know if you've studied stoicism or into oh yeah, but that's exactly the whole mantra of that philosophy. It's yeah, it's gonna happen. It's just. How do you want to interpret the?
Speaker 2:next step. Yeah, so I Epictetus hard that yeah.
Speaker 1:I say Extremely hard to do.
Speaker 2:I preach, yeah, I preach it to friends all the time that are talking about Somebody that had wronged them and I'm look, you're mad because that's your choice. Mm-hmm, you can choose not to be mad about that and that's the essence of stoicism is everything is a choice internally, and I get that, yeah that's a difficult thing.
Speaker 1:So from from that point when, in your journey of now, you're what, seven, eight months in to after the tree, when did you see this TV show and get this crazy and wild idea of like, oh, I can shuffle, I can't walk, I can barely take care of myself, I should go do a triathlon. Like where? When did that switch happen?
Speaker 2:well, I actually Was inspired to do 10 K's prior to that. I started walking and then I would walk, run and then pretty much I got to a point where I could run a you know a couple of hundred yards and I just kept adding to it and adding to it and I did my first 10 K the fall or the spring of 1985. It was at Oral-Wabbage University, around that area on Riverside Park in Tulsa. It was like a year and a half later.
Speaker 1:Probably two years. Yeah, two years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I knew that I wanted to do get it back into athletics and one of my missions was to Prove to myself that I could come full circle after that accident and I could be just as strong, if not stronger than because my mental toughness was even greater than it was going into the accident at this point, and it was fall of 1985. And this is when you think back to the way TV used to be. You had like four channels, right, and if you missed it, you missed it. There was no replay. I mean there was. I mean things weren't in syndication Really at that point, not like it is today. And I just happened to be sitting around one Saturday which was odd for me to be indoors on the Saturday and I come across the wide world of sports and they start and they're doing the Hawaiian Ironman triathlon and then I just happened to catch that Julie Moss at the very end. They did a replay, 82 Ironman where she's leading and leading and leading, and then she just collapses at the end and as I'm watching this replay, I'm like that's my life. I mean I just saw my accident play out, all that effort, and then boom, something happens and you're on the ground and but you still have a finish line in life that you have to make it to. And she gave it all and I could so relate to everything that she was going through. And I knew nothing about triathlon but I knew I had to do one and my primer was just watching the remainder of that program, going out the next day and buying a triathlon magazine, buying a.
Speaker 2:I had several hurdles that I had to overcome at that point, which was I didn't have a bike. I had very little money and pools in lakes in Oklahoma in the summertime or in the wintertime not happening. So I bought my $50 pawn shop bike at a local pawn shop down the street. It was an old Raleigh 56 cm. I ride a 52, so the thing was way oversized for me and I Started thinking about how can I get access to a pool? And that's when I thought I'll get my lifeguard certification, and so I joined up at the Y to take the lessons.
Speaker 2:I had access to a pool. My brother-in-law got me into the TU pool, which has since been demolished, but I was Going there at 5 am Every single day training for the triathlon that was. I had found the Lake Pankatriathlon was happening in June of 86 and that was my target and so I kind of worked back from there to do that. But that moment of divine inspiration me, my path crossed with the perfect sport at the perfect time for reason, and it, as it turns out, all the suffering and my ability to endure pain, to do triathlon. I was the perfect makeup for that, because when I start to suffer, the strongest muscle, which is right up here, takes over and it pushes past that pain, all that lactic burn, and I can go, I can keep pushing myself and yeah.
Speaker 1:So when she got in, you start training, you start riding, getting in the pool, those kinds of things. You show up to race day. Fast forward a few months, you show up to race day and In, in true reality it was just to finish like I mean, I'm assuming that was your goal, it you had no expectations other than to cross that finish line right, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I told, yeah, go ahead, go ahead. Well, and I told nobody that I was doing this. Okay, there was the guy that I rode with which was going to. He was in one of my classes. That told us the junior college at the time. I Told him, hey, I'm training for a triathlon. He's like what's a triathlon? And I told him he's like, hey, I want to do that. So we both started training individually, not not together. We rode up together and you know I made not a big deal about it. I mean it. I wasn't there to prove anything to anybody but myself right, yeah, so he was just a unfold for you what it was actually quite comical.
Speaker 2:That night we camped in a tent next to Lake Ponca and we had not checked the forecast. But there was a torrential downpour and this was June 6th, right, so the lake water was already cold. It was not really up to perfect temp, but when that late or that rainwater hit, it was freezing. I mean, I I did not have enough sense to warm up to do any. You know, laps Get the muscles going. I just stepped in and I just automatically started shivering. And I'm looking at around it Everybody else and they're all stoked and ready to go and I'm like, let me survive. And I just I took off.
Speaker 2:There were no wetsuits and I couldn't tell you what the water temperature was, but it was awful, awful cold. I started cramping up with, then maybe the first quarter mile Grabbed, a boat was rubbing the cramps out, made the turn, was on the way back and Grabbed another boat to rub another set of cramps out. And I look back and I still see splashes in the water. So I'm going hey, this is a big one for me, I'm not last right, and this is a huge one. I make it out of the the water and, of course, you know, being in the lake for that long, I don't even know what my swim time was, maybe 45 minutes or so. It was pretty lengthy.
Speaker 1:People. That don't we? I don't think we covered it. This is an Olympic length draft on yes, which is the 1500 meter swim, which is just under a mile. Yeah, your bike, what was your butt? I don't. 25, 20, as I say, chooses 40k and six, depending on the on the course. 40k is what it's supposed to be, yeah, and then your, your run is a 10k. So that's just a set this up for people. So you make it out of the water. You're still alive, you're not last, no, and I'm probably yeah at this point.
Speaker 2:So I get out, and I had Again. My only primer to this was watching the Hawaiian Ironman.
Speaker 2:I assumed that there was gonna be like a changing tent where I could go get out of my wet garb, and no, no, there was no change you got a straight here but yeah, I get on and go, and so I go and I put my big, massive bell helmet on and I jump on the bike with my single water bottle and my plastic tow clips and I take off and I I. What I need to say is that I'd never swim a mile non-stop at this point. I've never done 40k bike non-stop at this point. But I managed to put them together, despite it being kind of a windy day and, of course, there's no drafting. So you know, I was fighting it all by myself and my poor little body, but I made the. I made the turnaround, made it all the way back. I was probably dehydrated like crazy. I did not know enough to really fuel. I mean, sports nutrition was nothing back then. Get a raid bananas, oranges and figs, yeah.
Speaker 1:But half time of a little league little kids soccer game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, exactly yeah, nothing good, Just you know something to get you going and of course I didn't know what a brick was. So I did my first brick and it was getting off the the bike and and transitioning from circles to strides was.
Speaker 1:that was an eye-opener, I mean well, for and for all of our cycling friends out there. A brick is when you go from a, from a bike, to a run, and they say that because your legs feel like bricks and so you just it's very clunky and the more you do them, the more it becomes normal and it's not so bad. But if you never do them it's a very miserable, odd feeling when you take off the bike.
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean, and it's almost impossible to get acclimated when this is your first time in a race, after swimming a mile and riding 25.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not a good idea to do it the way that you're doing it.
Speaker 2:No, no, I mean it, but it was the perfect storm. But it right it was. It made sense for me and my knowledge base at that point yeah, just wing it, let's do it. Yeah, so take off on the run. And of course, the one thing I wanted to do was walk straight out of the gate because I was so tired from the bike and my legs Weren't wanting to work with me. But I mustered it up to run past to the point where nobody could see me and then I was like you know, it would have been the walk of shame otherwise.
Speaker 2:But about maybe three quarters of the round through the run course and I was not breaking stellar numbers by any means, but I was not going to quit. I mean, I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. I Step off for a bio break in the woods and as I came back and I looked to my left, there's the sweet vehicle and I knew I'm like, okay, I'm the last guy. And the guy was like, motioning me, come on. I'm like no man. I mean, I'm like maybe a mile away from finishing this race, what?
Speaker 1:a jerk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no doubt right, he should have been going, come on Be my cheerleader. But I pushed forward and as I'm coming out around the the towards the lake, I can see the stage and they're actually doing the award ceremony and the announcer stopped everybody. He's got this big megaphone. He says let's give the last athlete a round of applause and one that validated me that I was an athlete again and it when you had that title and you've lost it and you're trying to get it back. It means everything when somebody self-validates you like that.
Speaker 2:And of course I get this huge round of applause and I pick at my pace and I cross the finish line. And the minute I crossed it, the first thing I thought was I'm a triathlete and it was like a huge proud moment for me. But again I was not out there to say hey, look at me, this is what I went through, yep. And now the irony is that I'm doing it now but I've got a purpose for it back. Then it might have been a little more self gratifying, whereas today it's less about that, more about Inspiring people with a story that needs to be told so, so soon as you got done with that first one, did you instantly think where's the next one?
Speaker 1:or did you think that was cool?
Speaker 2:but Well, I mean after guzzling water and getting something to eat, of course, no, I was. I was down for the next one and the minute I got home I started researching, and the next one I did was in Norman. I was on my way back to OU. At this point I'd been accepted back to OU and so I was headed back for the fall semester and the triathlon that he did was at Lake Thunderbird in Norman and it was one where Lance Armstrong was racing and actually won that triathlon and I was doing a virtual cycling event with him and George Hancappie and I chimed in is like, hey, lance, we raced together back in the 80s doing triathlon down in Norman. He's like, oh yeah, I was up in Oklahoma a lot, I'm doing triathlons and you know it said what you want about the guy. He's an incredible athlete, he's a cheater, but you know this was back before all that. He was a 16 year old phenomenon, yeah, yeah it was a great one.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely yeah. So you started, you got into that and then at what point did you I mean, I know you still do some multi sport stuff now, but at what point did your journey kind of shift a little bit heavier into just the cycling realm and be like, hey, I this is because I totally understand that I mean I got into all this stuff through in dirt, in endurance sports, through triathlon, and then at some point I was just like, yeah, I think I'm gonna, I want to, I want to spread my wings and try some different things. And then I found, you know, I've tried all the things, I've tried the crits and did all things and I found my niche and mountain biking and anything in the dirt, where I found my true love. I still want to do some multi sport stuff here and there, but you know that's I. At this point I kind of do it all but kind of have focused more on the bike. What was your journey like in focusing more on the bike?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, it really came down to time management after I graduated college. And what was your degree in in college? It was radiological sciences. I was an x-ray tech, okay, gotcha. Yeah, graduated from the health sciences center here in at OU, gotcha. So after I graduated, worked evening shift but I had, I had the great schedule where I had days on, you know, through the day I was off, but for some reason I just could not figure out a way to make my training regime work with my work.
Speaker 2:And I've always loved riding. I mean, I'd ridden as a kid. I had my Schwinn Stingray, my three speed, I mean it. You know, bikes have always been there for me and I just Thought you know what? This is what I love, this is what I'm best at, I? I love running, but I didn't love running, but I love being on the bike. It was effortless for me. So the 90s, I shifted over and primarily went to road biking and the real thing that I hate that I missed was I did not know that the Paralympics Existed until just literally about a decade ago. Otherwise I would have been probably working towards that as a, you know, in my younger 20s, when I was still doing majority of my cycling because and I would have been I think I would have been good enough Back then. My time and strength and speed were. I was pretty agile on the bike, so what would?
Speaker 1:what would help? What would you qualify in that? Because I don't understand. Know all the ins and outs of what gets you into the Paralympics and those kinds of things. So would, just because of your previous medical history well, I had ended up with foot drop.
Speaker 2:So you know I Running was always an issue for me because your foot drags and you have to lift it a little bit higher. And there's the way. Parasports is actually pretty subjective because everybody's injuries are different, everybody's abilities are different. I've actually seen people with my similar type of Injuries now which I have bilateral limitations on both my legs. I've seen them move down in classification but get faster, which doesn't make a lot of sense because, yeah, trust me, I've talked with USA cycling and I've talked with USA triathlon and None of what I has to say makes a difference.
Speaker 2:But they, they're fully aware that it's pretty subjective and that you know, some people from a country perspective will kind of cheat the system to put Somebody on there that's like could literally compete with able-bodied people, right, yeah, seriously, but I would have been a C3 and the end the classification is C1, which is the the most disabled. C2, c3, c4 and your C5s are kind of noticeably different, but not not. It may not be outwardly physical that you can actually see their disability or their limitations, but but it's there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, interesting. So you never competed in a true like games.
Speaker 2:No, I. I got invited to the Paralympic trials 20 I forget, 2014, 2016, similar around that, that area of the year that they were going to Rio. I got invited to the trials because I was back into cycling at that point and I did have my Usac number and I was doing races although Any local race or any regional race that I do, I'm racing against able-bodied athletes there. There's still not been a true shift in allowing inclusive races for people with disabilities and I'm trying to change that, and then we can certainly talk about that later on. But, yeah, that was, that was probably the closest and and I don't think I would have done that well, but it would have been an honor just, I mean, how often do you get a letter this says, hey, you're invited to the Paralympic trials? That's cool. Yeah, 50 something, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and in, like I said, I have a very small sample size of working with challenged athletes and being in their presence. The challenge athlete foundation is one of the most incredible organizations on the planet. They do stories that come out of that place and the people that they help in the, the programs that they have, are just I mean, I got goosebumps right now just thinking about them. Right, yeah, through through that organization and, uh, there were our adventures in multi sport, you know there's. I was very naive because I've never been around someone who has a different ability, and being around the people that everybody who has a different ability, it's interesting what their needs are and how they compete and or just live their daily lives. And so, like I said, we had small I have a small sample size of that, but it's. It's a completely different world. That Different body athlete, different able body athletes you know operate in on a daily basis yeah, much less than endurance sports. So I would love to recommend people to somehow volunteer for an event if it's the special Olympics or if it's, you know, the Paralympics or some sort of games, or get involved with a challenge athlete event of some sort when it's at, because the stories and the heart and the Toughness of everyone involved, or the caretakers that are involved with these people on a daily basis. There's nothing in your life that's like nothing Right? It changed me forever and in our little crew, it changed all of us forever in so many different ways, and there's so many times that I've done events and I'm like and I can think of the exact times right now in my head, of when I've been in the middle of like this sucks, like this Isn't anymore. I'm miserable, you know, but I and I honestly think back to like So-and-so would love to be here right now. So-and-so would love to be out in these trees suffering right now. You know it's, it's, it's an amazing experience. It's, it's an amazing little world that, uh, that the athletes live in, that have different abilities and so, um, I Truly hope that we can help continue to spread the word and I hope this Episode does a little bit of that.
Speaker 1:People kind of look into. At least one person looks into it. Um, I know ryan smoke was our able-bodied athlete and there were so many people that came up to him throughout our five-year journey of doing these stupid events that, Um, they'd be like hey, I saw you on this, or I heard your story here. I've been following brice doing x, y and z, you guys. You know I gave up smoking and now I've started running, where I've started doing this or I started doing that, but and we always went back to you never know who's watching, because no one tells you. Just like you went through this event, didn't tell anybody, yeah, you would never know who's watching. And so, um, getting involved in doing and uh, helping one of these athletes achieve a goal is it's, it's the most self, it's the most selfless, selfish thing you can do because it's firing. It's yeah, yeah, people like, oh, that's so cool that you're doing that. I'm like, screw that, you know what I'm getting from this.
Speaker 1:Yeah exactly, yeah, I'm getting so much more than brice is getting out of this situation Absolutely. So I love that you have that story. I hope we can continue to share that. So I mean anything that you want to go into with that, with the um, you know, with the challenge athletes or different body athletes, you know, I would love to, to spread that word any way that we can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know actually did a podcast interview with bob abbott, who's the cgo. Um, yeah, bob, I've been chasing bob and bob and I kind of been paying it back and forth and we finally did it over this last summer. It was a super nice talking to him because you know he goes way back in the day with her athelon as well. He was one of the og's um and he's made such a huge impact with that and I've been been a beneficiary of the challenged athletes foundation. Um, robin williams was a huge supporter of challenged athletes and when he died, robin was a huge cyclist and he had this extensive bicycle collection and his family auctioned off the bicycles and they put it into a, a trust with calf, and they gave out grants. In the first year they gave out a grant. I got a grant for Uh through that foundation Uh, so I've got a robin williams bike I get. It's a specialized the birds.
Speaker 1:Our internet, my internet paws go back. So the first year that they get it was like all the way up to the good stuff and I'm like no, so the first, yeah, oh, that's minor years, but we'll get it fixed here in just a second. All right, let's wait. Just once again late, let it iron itself out. Okay, I think it's on my. So the first year that they gave out that grant, you got Some money from that.
Speaker 2:I did. Yeah, I got money for a gravel bike. I wanted to start doing cross or do gravel and so, yeah, I got the Robin Williams bike. It's a specialized the verge and yeah, I love it. I mean that's so cool, you should be. One bike fits everything and now you have all these different versions and I think that's it's an addiction to have bikes.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, that's a problem. We did that whenever we did Kona two years ago with with Spoken Bryce. They were on the breakfast with Bob, so if you're a traffic and you follow Kona, you know what breakfast with Bob is, and so, yeah, that's how I got to meet him. We were there and, yeah, incredible guy, incredible, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Super, have his energy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the things that he's gonna change lives is as wild.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and you know you're talking about the disabled cyclist. I most recently was appointed to the Edmond bicycle committee, so now I get to impact cycling in the Edmond community, which is awesome. It's my passion and the first meeting that we had, one of the directors of the cycle 66 was there and she was like you know, does anybody have any suggestions for the event? And I said, well, we'd love to see Parasychlist, a whole, another section of parasychlist either, you know, especially in the crit, because you know Parasychlist can race crits as well, hand cycles and even upright. And they were very receptive to that. So we're gonna hopefully be hooking up after the first of the year to talk about including the disabled athlete cyclist in Next year cycle 66.
Speaker 1:Hopefully, well, and Bentonville Just opened in the past, I'm gonna say month just opened their first Handcycling downhill. So a few of them that are out and you know, like legit, like in Whistler, they'll have one or two, and so there's a couple. I'm compatible, but Bentonville just did one and it's just it's off of the all-american trail over in the slaughter pin area, if you're familiar with mountain biking areas in Bentonville, so they do have a Chair downhill runs that are now cable, which is awesome first step. So I love that you brought that to people's attention.
Speaker 1:My Suggesting and recommendation for any event that wants to do something with different ability, cyclist or endurance athletes is treat them just like every other athlete. Yes, because Ironman and I will dog on Ironman for a long time I I Think they do amazing things with when it comes to making people healthier and moving. They have a great. They do. They do awesome stuff in the world. They also do some really crappy stuff in the world Inside of their world let's say not the world inside their world and one of those is when you are a challenged athlete and have a team. You are there because they get good, great publicity out of it and they can check the box and say hey, we don't discriminate.
Speaker 1:When you show up at Kona and they put you basically between the changing tent and a fence and they're like we're gonna put 20 athletes and their bikes and their handlers all in this like 20 by 20 area and we have to stack bikes on top of bikes and we have to talk amongst ourselves to be like how fast are you gonna swim so your bike can go in front of my bike? And then when we're in there, let me get out of the way so you can get back here to your bag of stuff. And you truly are like an afterthought. They could get two craps about you. They don't do anything extra for you. They don't do anything extra to help you to make your life, even Compared to a normal athlete, not much less like it.
Speaker 1:Your, your day is harder already. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah. And then your setup is harder than the able-bodied athletes. So, but they get to check that box and then, if something goes well, they can say hey, look at this really cool story on. We put on our newscast of how amazing this sport is, so I'll get off the soapbox. But any athlete, any, any organization or any race that wants to do it. Treat them normal, give them. If they need extra things, give it to them. Don't make it an afterthought, just so you can check the box and say look how great we are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and you know, I would go further and saying that every, every event should have a drop-down for the disabled athlete. And, sadly, if, if, when I'm looking for races and I'm not looking to be categorized Just so I can be the only guy that goes out there and gets a medal that has nothing to do with it. I'm not there to compete against the course, I'm nobody else, right, but I would like to. If there is an opportunity to compete against like abilities, I would love that, whereas I'm being lumped in with everybody else, as is everybody else similar, with similar Abilities to myself. But, right, and I've been doing this since 86. We're in 2023 and we still don't have that. That's part of the reason that I'm out here talking about it, because we don't see as many of these people on the course, we don't see as many people out in the street, because we're not giving them opportunities to compete. I mean, they have to fight for it.
Speaker 1:I agree, yeah, rule of three. Last year was the first year I've done that. It's a. It's an event in Arkansas and it's a gravel race essentially, but they have a division for different Abilities athletes and the guy that wanted I saw him on the course he had.
Speaker 1:Clearly he was way in front of me because I did not catch him till significantly later in the course that I should have when I got that. He hasn't he had. He was an amputee above the knee and he had an e-bike. But the section that I saw him on he was off because it was like a really steep single track section and he was trying to walk His bike up this with you know his, and he was like Nobody help me, leave me alone, like I'm gonna do it. He got to the top and he was sitting there I gotta take a break and you know he's. He was making it happen and it was incredible. But he wasn't the only Different ability to athlete there, which was super cool. Yeah, and we had a whole division for that. It was wonderful. I love seeing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those are tough. When you're an amputee or you wear braces, they're very tough. Yeah, it'll take it out of you, and you know. Ironically enough, I see I found more gender identity Sections in races than I do about disabled.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and you know that's something that me and smoke talk about all the time, because you know that's such a culturally hot topic right now and it should be, and and I understand it and and I Am all for people being treated the way that they should be treated. You know who cares what they do and what they want their name to be. It makes me no difference in my life. So why do I, why do I want to fight against that? Yeah, but again, the, the people that have, you know, this giant group of people who have been in the background, have been fighting forever, have kind of gotten glossed over and have not been able to Share their message. I mean, how many times I go to my gym? Every, every, every time. And half the spots are filled up. The handicap spots are filled with people that don't want door beings, and I'm like you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So it's like yeah, and I experienced it with Bryce because he has to have he's, you know, in a chair, and so for him to get in and out of his van, he he needs space on the side of the van. And how many times do we get there? We're like we can't pull the ramp out because some jerk part over the lines in the handicap zone. Yeah, you know, and but it it as a Typical person who has never experienced this with anyone, you don't even think about right, but the, the different Ability to athletes and non-athletes. They have really gotten glossed over in our society and it's a really sad and and miserable thing. So anything we can do to bring attention to that is, yeah, it needs to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm beating that drum. I'm here to help me.
Speaker 1:Looking in, but I am here to I've got flag as well because it needs to happen. So let's transition that into. That's a perfect transition, like we actually know what we're doing here. Yeah, you doing these days like what's the next step? You've, you've done races, you've, you've made it happen. You're out there and and grinding away. You've got on this Board with Edmund cycling to help spread awareness and make changes in the community. Now what?
Speaker 2:Well, my next, and this just kind of it's been in the back of my mind for several years, but I I want to do the Oakland City Memorial Marathon, not necessarily a bike event. I, although they have been talking about doing a bike event, I know they have hand cycles, which is a whole section of disabled athletes, but they're kind of missing the people like me that can still riding an upright bike and you know what. Why shouldn't we be out there with the hand cycles? So I'm hopefully going to get them to include that. But in the meantime I'm I would love to be able to do the half marathon Running with forearm crutches. It's my way of adapting to being able to run. I have balance issues with my disease that I have and Strength issues, and so that just kind of gives me that ability and I've got between now and April to prepare myself and hopefully, my shoulders. I've had one reconstruction. I need another reconstruction, but I think I can get through it. But that's, that's the next.
Speaker 2:The next thing and the reason I want to do that is it's very personal. I was a rescue worker. I volunteered my services to the medical examiner when this happened and Myself and a team of other x-ray techs ended up X-raying all the the victims and you know, sadly, even parts of victims that they pulled out of the rubble there After the mirror bombing back in 95, and so I want to do it to honor them again. It's not about recognition I could give two squirts of piss about recognition. It's about I Want to be seen as this person that's still pushing themselves in their 60s with everything that I have going on Trying to tell everybody else that you may be in a similar circumstance, less or even more. So you can still push yourself and you need to push yourself, because it's when you give up and you start clicking on the remote that You're just rolling downhill. I'm still pushing that pill, good, I love it.
Speaker 1:So how are you pushing uphill outside of getting out there and doing it? You got this will come out clearly after your big event tomorrow. Yeah, how are you spread in the word? What are you doing to to push things forward, and not just in events, but in society?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, you know, besides being part of Edmund and telling my story on stage, I get to, as you said, I'm gonna tell it at OU tomorrow. It's my big return to my alma mater, honoring one of my professors that was a huge mentor for me and, really, the only reason that that I'm able to go back to the university Was because she gave me an opportunity to enter the program and graduate and show her that I had potential. This will hopefully launch the next stage of my career, which is going to be a motivational speaking tour. I've been, you know, working on sharing my story on podcast, trying to hone my message and trying to get my word out there. I'm also working on a book.
Speaker 2:I've been working on this book for quite some time now, but I'm more motivated now than ever to get it done because it will go hand in hand with doing interviews and saying, hey, I've got a book with much more and Really, I've only hit the tip of the iceberg with my story. There's so much more there and it's not for self-clarification as much as it's. Well, this student has been through hell and back and hell and back and hell and back and he continues to go. That's the human spirit you know to push forward, and I want the lasting legacy to be that you know we humans are capable of enduring so much, but we're capable of so much while we're enduring it, and Go make a difference, you know, go inspire somebody that you may not know you're inspiring and, and that's Truly, I want my suffering to stand for something, and and if I can inspire one Person or two and they go inspire somebody from that message, then my it'll all be worth it. That's 100% it.
Speaker 1:So you're wanting to to launch this speaking career and spread that message. I mean, are you going to continue to do more events outside of like you got the memorial and stuff? Are you going to kind of can use that, continue to be your launch pads, like, hey, we're, we're still doing crazy things out here? Yeah, I, hopefully I'm going to get to the point now where I'll be comfortable.
Speaker 2:I'm taking the race director and and saying, hey, I'm going to be at your event and I have this story and, if you feel like you know, we can use it Again. It's not for self promotion or glorification as much as it's I want to tie into sports because sports has really been the the key to my survival and and my recovery, and I know that it's not just unique to me, it can be unique to everybody. So let's get the story out there and I'm happy to Like a better term pimp myself out To make that happen. Yeah, and I've waited. You know, if I was, if I really wanted the attention, I could have done this 37 years ago. Right, but that was just not me.
Speaker 2:I'm coming to the end of my life. I know that now I mean it's all our days are numbered, but I'm 60. I've had two heart attacks, I got nine stents, I've got this crappy painful disease, I've had my accident, spine fluid leak, meningitis, I could go on and on. Oh, but my god, but all that does is it puts me at a low spot. And then I look at something Up the up the hill that I need to chase and get done and put a new finish line out there and Again at 5, 7, 140 pounds. I'm this little meat guy. If I can do it, anybody else can. I know that the fact that you just rambled off that resume wrap that wrap sheet of like all the things that you're like.
Speaker 1:One of these sucks really bad, yeah, so like getting stuck and smashing a tree was just like One of the things. It wasn't even like maybe the worst thing. No, no, I think the worst thing is what I'm dealing with now the arachnoiditis, which is the disease that I have.
Speaker 2:It's chronic inflammation of the spinal cord tissue, the arachnoid tissue. It's on the, the hierarchy of diseases that are painful. It's at the top. It's it's considered the complex regional pain syndrome which you know.
Speaker 2:I've been on a slew of medications and I could rattle off pretty much every narcotic you can imagine. I've been on it and it did nothing for me. So I took the stance years ago that you know I'm gonna take it all under my own control again. And here comes coach Steve back out. You know he's gonna say let's get rid of all the medications. I got rid of all that Transition to doing more cycling and more physical fitness and honestly, the endorphins are the best pain killer you're ever gonna find. Um it.
Speaker 2:I pay the price at the end of every workout, at the end of every ride. I may not sleep that night and been so much pain, but regardless, the next day I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna look at that bike going. It's the one day that I can't get on you that I'm gonna dread the most. But today's, not that day, yeah. And so I go out there and jump on it and just keep pushing. Man. I mean, what other choice do I have? I'm not. I'm not the you know Guys that wants to sit on the couch and and watching Netflix all day.
Speaker 1:Clearly, your version of Pain is completely different than than the typical American Refugees. I tell I you know, I say that often to to some of my ladies at work, you know, because they're, you know, just getting into fitness, trying to find their their way in life and these kinds of things. And I'm just tell me, listen, you're gonna hurt and be sore if you sit on the couch all day after you get off Working and go to bed, or, yeah, you're gonna be sore and uncomfortable because of a workout you did. So you're, but at least if you do this one, you get to have some sort of variance with it and or can have an experience Down the road because you're in better shape so you can go see things that you've never seen before or do something with your kids or In life that you never thought you would do. But you're gonna hurt no matter what, so you might as well have fun hurting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I, I tell everybody to you know, find what your finish line is, whether that's a race or you know a time or An amount or distance, or whatever the case may be. But every step, every day, gets you closer to that finish line. But if you don't start the day with that finish line in mind, you're never gonna know what to do. You're never gonna know what to do. You're never gonna know what to do, you're never gonna know how to feel. And and it's when you form all that into a habit Give it 30 days and after 30 days you won't want to quit. I mean most, everybody. I know at least the, with my mindset, the athlete's mindset 30 days Of anything new, whether it be mountain biking or gravel riding or road riding or whatever the case would be from a bike perspective, it's, you're gonna miss it if you give it up after 30 days, yeah wow.
Speaker 1:So with your current disease that you're fighting I know we we talked about it very briefly before we got started here Um, what, what's the outcome? What is the, the next steps? Like, what are you trying to do? I know you want to really get the name out there because it's such a rare disorder. Like what, what can we do to kind of to get that message out there?
Speaker 2:You know I I'm gonna start promoting myself a little bit more at these races with the disease process and the most famous person that was linked to the disease was uh jfk yeah, president kindy. Uh, you know he had injured his back in world war two and they said that he was on chronic painkillers and a lot of his symptoms were very reminiscent of the symptoms of Arachnoiditis. It was before there was really a true diagnosis or a way to diagnose it. Right now the only way that you can really diagnose it is with an MRI and you know he predated MR by quite a few decades Um. But I want to try to get that out there as much as possible and I would love to be able to. There's got to be somebody Alive and famous that has this disease. It's very similar to MS, it's very similar to lupus, only because it's in the autoimmune family. Um. But you know I'm the low-level Um famous guy and I'm trying to do what I can. I mean literally every podcast I talk about it. So it's out there. But I would love to find somebody that has board name recognition and partner with them and try to form some sort of foundation where we can have people give to it.
Speaker 2:Because here's the sad thing about this disease is that a majority of women come out with it after childbirth or not a majority of women, but a majority of the people that get it get it from epidurals after childbirth. And I can only imagine having a baby happiest time in your life and then, days later, you're strapped with this most painfully crippling disease. That is life changing and that's your focus, not your child, I mean literally. When you're in that much pain it's hard to focus on a child, and I can only imagine and I know people like that.
Speaker 2:I've got a friend that does not have the disease, but she came out of her epidural with foot drop paralysis and there's got to be some sort of cure that we can go in and put some money towards it, because no research over at least the last 30 or 40 decades has really been done to look at it, and the majority of people now are caught up in the opioid epidemic because they're on opioids to deal with this, which is a catch 22,. Because now we're going to limit your intake, even though you've got the worst, most painful disease possible, we still don't care because this is what the FDA recommends, so we're cutting you off, one of the reasons I got off of all that stuff. It was tough, and there are days when I wish that I had the magic pill. There just isn't one. So right man what a mission.
Speaker 1:What I think the most I'm again doing these podcasts. It's selfish. It's just really selfish because I get to meet cool people and hear cool stories, but your story is ridiculously wild. There's one other with Jacob Shelton, who's a very similar story as you have. He's got really, really, really horrible back pain. I don't remember off top of my head what his issue is, but and then he's had some addiction issues and things like that His story. So go back if you have not listened to his podcast.
Speaker 1:So, it's a great one, and cycling is kind of the same thing. It just keeps him mentally stable and sane, but also he can do it without pain ish, you know, like more than he can do other things, and it's really the bike has transformed and changed his life and it sounds like the bike is continuing to do that for you, which is awesome. Yeah, and using it for good, you've gone through. Clearly, we could record for like five hours, cover your story, and we may have to do another episode. So but using all of this crazy hardship to say hey, I think sucks sometimes, like deal with it and make something good out of it, which is inspiring, and it clearly again, easier said than done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hear people and I don't want to diminish or, you know, belittle their, their pain, because pain is very personal. I have a higher tolerance and I tend not to whine about it. I just accept that I'm in it. And if somebody notices and they ask yeah, I'll tell you that I'm in pain, but I'm not sitting here going oh you know whoa, not that dramatic. But when people do complain about some of their smaller stuff, it's the big eye roll, man. I mean I'm like you know what. And again it goes back to stoicism. It's a choice for you to whine about it.
Speaker 2:You could push through that, because my the daily pain when I'm having a good day would probably be the most debilitating pain for most anybody else. Yet I'm like this is a good day. I'm at a four, I can push on, I can get on the bike and, you know, knock out a 40k or more and have a good day knowing that I'm going to pay for it on the back end. But while I'm on the bike, man, I tell you what my biggest fear is that I'll wake up one day and my legs won't work. And that's going to be a revelation to me, because another life changer I'll have to say goodbye to my bike.
Speaker 2:I love my bikes. I mean, it has been the most life changing piece of equipment for me personally. And not only people that truly understand cycling for the beauty that it is and what it can provide you from a personal standpoint will ever get that. Anybody else that doesn't ride is going to go. It's a bike. How do you feel about your car, you know? Or your house? Yeah, same thing. Only my bike keeps me fit and healthy and happy.
Speaker 1:I know we talk about me and my little core group of buddies. We just went to Bentonville this past weekend and we've talked about it numerous times, like if it wasn't for the bicycle we would not be friends, because we all met through the bicycle. It's somehow, somehow, and the adventures that it's taken us on. I mean, I wouldn't have been on the bicycle, I would have never met Bryce, I would have never got to do Kona or you know, I would have never have met you Like it's changed everything in my entire existence and it's all because of this stupid little two-wheeled machine. Yeah, and it's, yeah, it's the best. So whatever people do, they need to find their bicycle, whatever that looks like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people that poop the bike. I'm like when's the last time you rode? I mean, when's the last time you actually went out for simple pleasure, not dreading the wind or the heat or the distance, just going out and pushing the pedals? Yeah, I mean when you do that with a conversation next to somebody, time flies by and pretty soon you know you strengthened your heart, you've gone all this distance, you've strengthened your muscles and the next day you wake up a little sore but you've got that energy, you got that bounce and you're like man, all that came from a bike, wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and hopefully you will somehow change someone's life because you ride a bicycle. Put through what you're doing now, which is all because of a stupid little bicycle, which is awesome.
Speaker 2:Well, I do turn heads. I mean, when I ride around Lake Hefton and I've got my braces on, I'm the only guy with braces. Trust me, I've seen nobody. Well, no, I can't. I got one other person, but she lives in Tulsa. Okay, yeah. So if you see me, if you see a guy with looks like two shin guards, say hi. Say hi to Steve, all right.
Speaker 1:Steve, I'll turn around and ride with you Before we get done. We always do a section at the end of the episode called yard sale, so we're going to jump into that. What is your favorite piece of equipment under $100?
Speaker 2:Let me see, I've got a tire lever tool that's like really helps me strip the new tires and I can't get them off without this thing. I mean the three, you know, the three tire levers. I've snapped more of those. This thing was like 30 bucks and anytime I need to change it flat, I got it. Is it plastic or metal? It's like a kind of a composite, like it's plastic, but it's like yeah, yeah, okay, gotcha, is it like a big, thicker one.
Speaker 2:Well, it's got a it kind of has like holes where you can put your fingers into it, like brass knuckles To grip it a little bit better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, interesting. Okay, that's the first time we've had that. I like it. What's your favorite event you've ever done?
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, I got to go back to the 80s and Lake Hefner used to have a race, the Hefter streak, and I mean we're talking. Hundreds of people would show up. It used to be much, much bigger and it was always held in September and you never knew if it was going to be cold, wet, hot. But I love that race. It was one of the first ones that I did where I won my age group and you know it was after my accident and it was like wow, super proud moment for me to be able to do that amongst all these people.
Speaker 1:This is not in the questions, but I did see a picture of you in a state championship jersey. What was that? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Well, that was 2017 and Bixby bikes put that on up in. I forget the town just outside of Tulsa, super flat open, very windy. I was the only disabled athlete that showed up, so I was, but you know what Exactly? I mean that just goes to show you that don't ever not show up because you may be the guy. And on that particular day and I actually set a PR I think my average speed on that course was a little over 20, which was fantastic for me. I mean, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you didn't just throw it in, you actually went out and worked it and earned it anyways.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, trust me, I did not know that. I was the only one I put it out there. And again, it was me in the course. It wasn't me and anybody. It's never me and anybody else. It's always me in the course I love that.
Speaker 1:What's your dream bike?
Speaker 2:Oh, lately I've kind of started to like the canyons. You know you get a lot for your money with the canyon and I probably say they've got a road bike. I can't think of what the model is, but it's got the index shifting, the DI2, I think the electronic. I don't know that. I'm a huge fan of that. I grew up with the friction shifters on the dial and I loved that and I was good at it, man, I mean I could dial that thing in. There was no clicking. And now you got all the click, click, click. And yeah, I'm old school man. You know I've had the big brake cables coming up over the handlebars. You're like big ram horns. Yeah, I mean there was nothing error when I started except your tuck.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's pretty much. It your favorite place to ride. Oh, I mean, I'm a little bit younger, with my son.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know we have not written in a while. He keeps saying hey dad, let's jump on the bike, let's go for a ride. He rides my Diverge and I ride. I've got a specialized rebate that I ride. But we used to do what I call tour the neighborhood, which is three neighborhoods around us, and when he was younger we wouldn't have to get out on the road too much. I mean, it's dangerous now, so we would just go neighborhood to neighborhood and we could put, you know, 20, 30 miles on the bike.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, yeah, well, we'll finish with this one. What would be well, there may be a two-parter here. What would be your advice to a new rider or triathlete?
Speaker 2:New rider is don't go so hard, so fast and expect too much. I mean, just enjoy. Enjoy the bike for the simple pleasure that it is, but always think about getting into some sort of race or some sort of group ride or a Fondo and doing a distance that you don't think you're capable of, because once you cross that finish line, after all that training, that does more to boost your spirit and push you forward in the rest of your entire life, not just in riding alone.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure, and then outside of cycling. This is truly what we'll end on. What is your message that you would like to send like a final thought to maybe cyclists, maybe just the general public that you're trying to spread with your message and your speech?
Speaker 2:So stop comparing yourself to everybody else. I mean, with social media it's a contest to keep up with everybody and what they're doing and how fast they're going or how far they're going and, whatever the case may be, they're setting the limits to your ability. You need to be the one that sets the limits to your ability, because you may exceed what they're doing just under your own undertaking. So just stop comparing yourself. Don't refuse to have a role model. Role models are great, but I had role model. I had Greg LeMond as a role model. I had Bernardino as a role model, the old school guys but I knew I was never going to be that good. I kind of grabbed on to their persona and the quality of rider that they were, that they kind of shown to the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. Steve, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for being an open book and sharing. Clearly there's a lot more that we can uncover here, but I love your mission and I don't know if there is a way that I can support you or help you or be in an event to volunteer or help with an event or whatever it is that you have going on. But I know me and my group of guys would be there in an instant if you have something going on with a challenge athlete group or a different ability to athlete, or just supporting an event. If there's something going on, please let me know so we can share that with everyone. But even if no one else shows up, I got a group of guys that will be there without any questions asked. So you just let us know what we can do. But thank you for the mission that you're on. Sorry you had to go through what you're going through, but I love the mission that you're on.
Speaker 2:You know, I always think that things happen for a reason, and this happened to me because, you know, I got knew that I could handle it and that I could get through the adversity that he was going to put my way, and there would be a message on the other end, though, and from my heart, I really thank you for that, because it's my mission.
Speaker 2:I would love Oklahoma to be the mecca of disabled cycling. Now we're in the center of the US, we've got a very strong cycling community, and here's the sad thing about paricycling is, within what we have in the state, disabled cyclists. We could put out national champion after national champion after national champion. There's just not that many people that show up to those races, which is sad. Because you want the competition. I mean, nobody likes to be the one guy that goes hello and wins the jersey or takes home the trophy. You want to be able to compete if you are a competitor heart, and I know that I am, and I know all these other athletes are, so I'm wanting to build our community of disabled cyclists and start putting those red, white and blue jerseys out on the road saying look what we did. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I love it. All right. Well, steve, good luck in your speech tomorrow, good luck in the new career that you have, that you're developing, and with the book. And so, yeah, good luck with everything, and I can't wait to follow the journey. Thanks, I really appreciate it. Thanks, steve.