A little more than eight years ago, Ian Mackay crashed his bicycle and flew head-first into a tree.
Mackay, now 34, was wearing a helmet — which he said most likely saved his life — and was airlifted to a hospital. He suffered a spinal cord injury and was paralyzed from the neck down.
The Port Angeles man has spent years learning to breathe through a ventilator and use his power wheelchair, which was controlled using a straw that is sensitive to air pressure. He couldn’t talk much the first year after his crash, but eventually regained enough diaphragm movement to breathe without the ventilator.
“It was a huge passion of mine,” he said. “It was destroyed. I spent a lot of time indoors just watching TV and being on the computer.”
About two years ago, Mackay decided to get back to his love of outdoors and started riding his wheelchair on bike trails. He’s put about 5,000 miles on his chair since then.
While he didn’t know it at the time, that was all in preparation for this August, when he set off on a roughly 350-mile trip through the entire state of Washington, using his wheelchair and any bike trail he could find.
Unfortunately, he had some issues.
“The state wasn’t designed for long distance on bike trails,” Mackay said.
Mackay partnered with Washington Bikes, a nonprofit that advocates for bicyclists and a more bicycle-friendly Washington, and set up his journey from Anacortes to Portland. He started Aug. 13, and crossed the Interstate 5 Bridge Tuesday afternoon to reach Portland after spending much his day traveling through Clark County.
Whenever possible, he rode on bike paths — but frequently, that wasn’t an option. He was left to ride on the shoulder or in bike lanes while cars whizzed by.
“I wanted to advocate for more bike trails,” Mackay said. “I also wanted to bring awareness that disabled people can use the trails and these roadways, too.”
Mackay said he requires about 20 hours a day of care. He had friends and family riding along with him on each leg, and they made sure to keep him as safe as possible while riding on streets. Since his chair gets about 30 miles on each charge, his mother was along for the trip in a van with an extra chair.
His chairs are doing fine, although he said the rattling of the chairs can shake some bolts and nuts loose.
About half the nights he stayed with friends, and the other nights he was in hotels. He raised about $10,000 for the trip, and what remains will go to Washington Bikes. He’s hopeful he’ll be able to donate about half of the money raised to the organization.
“We’ve gotten so much support for everywhere we’ve gone,” Mackay said. “We had people pull over in their cars to give us Gatorade and water, or just give us a hug. People have been cheering us on.”
Mackay and his crew didn’t receive unanimous support, though. Sometimes while riding in bike lanes, he was told to get on the sidewalk. In Sumner, he and his riders stopped for a bit and locked up their bikes. Someone cut the locks and stole two of their three bikes.
“The cool thing is, we put it out on Twitter what happened, and within an hour, we had two loaner bikes so we could keep going,” Mackay said.
His favorite stretch of the journey was the Centennial Trail between Arlington and Snohomish, which he said was well off the road and surrounded by trees so it was cool and shaded.
As for his least favorite stretch of the trip, Mackay has some potentially helpful advice.
“I don’t recommend wheelchair driving through downtown Seattle,” he said, noting that the city was crowded and he didn’t have much space to drive his chair.
Each night, Mackay and his riders visited breweries. He said he’s going to stick around Portland for two days to try out some local beers, and today he’s meeting with a group of kids who want to start a website for young people with disabilities. They want to interview him for their site.
Mackay said he wanted to show people it was still possible for him to share his love of the outdoors and still drive around exploring. For more information about him and his trip, visit, www.iansride.com.
Adam Littman: 360-735-4518; adam.littman@columbian.com; twitter.com/a_littman
