Breaking Barriers and Advancing Accessible Mountain Biking in Idaho Article

The Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF) hosted a first-of-its-kind mountain bike clinic this year, where product designer and NYU Shanghai professor Noel Joyce helped CAF members build a custom adaptive mountain bike in under 48 hours.

An adaptive mountain bike rider himself, Noel was tired of broken bike parts, long wait times for replacement parts, and a lack of innovative design options for building new bikes quickly and efficiently.

“Getting into building bikes came about as a result of issues I had with bikes,” he explained. “I had a relatively simple bike that I used to go out on and I ended up breaking it. So I went back to the drawing board and I thought, ‘I’m going to design a bike from scratch that I can get a part replaced on it in as little as two weeks if I want to.’”

This experience led Noel to develop Project Mjolnir, an open source adaptive mountain bike project created for wheelchair users. The project empowers individuals to customize and build their own cost-effective adaptive bikes, ensuring accessibility and independence for all riders.

The CAF clinic provided members with a unique opportunity to learn from Noel while collaborating with fellow riders on their builds. Not only did participants get to build a fully functional adaptive bike in just two days, they also had the opportunity to see it in action in the Boise foothills.

“The fact that everything is like machined parts that were just laid out on a table yesterday morning and I come in and I’m like this looks like a mess and now we have a rolling chassis like a day later,” Noel remarked, highlighting the incredible progress made by the team. The clinic not only resulted in a functional mountain bike but also fostered a sense of community and shared experience among the athletes.

Justin Bickel, a CAF member who attended the clinic, was able to not only help build the bike but test drive it in the Boise foothills. “I got to ride with Noel for three days which was a great time. The bike had no issues, and I even rode it again two weeks later. It performed as well as bikes costing twice the price,” said Justin.

CAF sees this clinic as one of many powerful ways to unite athletes and demonstrate the power of collaboration. They hope that Noel’s project will inspire other wheelchair users to get involved in mountain biking and to build their own bikes.

Justin said the clinic was a really fun and unique experience for him and his fellow CAF members.

“Usually we are out riding or doing other activities, but this was a different type of activity to participate in together. I will definitely be thinking about building my next bike myself after participating in this clinic.”