Pace comes through again

Last year I wrote extensively about the creation of my cycling-specific prosthetic leg, courtesy of the folks at Pace Rehabilitation near Manchester (see article here: Winning is All About Your Pace). The leg catapulted me from a top-10 rider to a World Champion in less than a year. OK, there might have been a bit more to my rise to the top than just the leg, but without a doubt, it was one of the greatest factors. 

But not one to be content, I went back to Pace after the World Championships in Denmark and challenged them to do even better. If I was going to have to step up my game in the next year, I wanted to make sure my equipment was up to the challenge as well. And, as my next challenge was to be the Track Cycling World Championships, I wanted a leg that could help squeeze every last millisecond of time out of me. On the track, races are won or lost in tenths of a second so it's crucial to make sure you don't give any extra time away if you don't have to.

The project (dubbed 'Mark II') was born out of an encounter that Howard Wooley and I had while presenting at a prosthetics conference in Scotland. Howard is the prothetist at Pace that I have worked with this past year in creating my first cycling leg. At the conference, we met another presenter, Bryce Dyer and immediately the wheels started turning. Bryce is a Senior Lecturer in Product Design at the School of Design, Engineering and Computing at Bournemouth University. His primary interest is with the development and use of technology within elite level sport. As an avid cyclist himself, he had a keen understanding of the forces and aerodynamic issues surrounding the design of a cycling prosthetic.

Bryce was (correctly) convinced that while the first leg Pace created was superb, we could still take the design much further and maximise power transfer, aerodynamic efficiency and reduce the weight. He agreed to consult on the project and lend his expertise in the design process. I had a rough idea of how the leg should look (and have to admit that much of what I wanted came from an examination of Jody Cundy's leg), but it was going to be up to Bryce and Howard to bring it to life.

The project took a while to get underway, and with the Track World Championships taking place in early February, we were under the gun to get the design completed and manufactured in time. I would need it a few weeks before the event (as I was travelling to L.A. to prepare and needed some time to try it out and get used to it before competition.) Howard and Pace were going to have to work quickly.

Fortunately, Pace were able to use the socket moulds from the first leg to begin work. This saved a fair bit of time straight away (especially since this part of the leg would stay the same). The time-consuming work would mainly come from developing the lower half of the leg. I had drawn up on paper how I thought this portion should look and Howard and Pace faithfully produced the first prototype based on my drawing – but it was completely wrong. Not that they did anything wrong – but my concept was completely wrong. Sometimes you have to see something in person before you realise it won't work.

Over the next few weeks we began to fine-tune the design and hone in on what would become the final product. After a fair bit of revision, we managed to get the shape right; in particular the cleat placement and transition shape from the top half of the leg to the bottom. This was a sticking point for me as I needed something fairly specific in order for it to feel right when actually riding it. I kept sending it back to the workshop until I finally got something that felt right, and to their credit, the folks at Pace didn't lose patience with me. Howard even came with me to the velodrome to test out the final prototype and make adjustments to it track-side so that we could keep the process moving along as quickly as possible.

The next step was to work on the aerodynamic profile, and this is where Bryce's expertise came into play. If you are at all familiar with cycling and the UCI (the governing body for cycling), you may be familiar with the 3:1 rule. Essentially it states that no part of your bike frame can be more than 3 times deep as it is wide. It doesn't apply to things like wheels but comes into play for most everything else. If you imagine the wing of an airplane and the teardrop shape, especially how wide that teardrop is, you might begin to understand why something flat and wide can be beneficial from an aerodynamic point of view. The 3:1 rule limits the benefit you can get from aero tubing on your bike or bars.

And whilst there is no specific rule on the books saying that this also applies to prosthetics, I didn't want to be the guy that caused the UCI to bring in a rule. So we decided to keep our leg within the confines of the 3:1 rule. However, Bryce was able to come up with a way to keep the leg 3:1 legal, whilst making it as wide and as aero as possible. I'm not going to give away the solution, but it's a solution being used by some bike manufacturers already in developing their frames.

The final piece of the puzzle was the weight issue. In the first leg we made, the inside of it (under the carbon fibre) was a foam shell. The hard foam shell is light, but still adds weight. For Mark II we were looking to eliminate any extra weight that we could, so Pace came up with a way to make it completely hollow. The outer carbon fibre shell was still as strong as the first leg, and despite it containing more material (due to the increased bladed shape), Mark II came in significantly lighter. Pace worked tirelessly to finish the project in time and with just days to spare before I had to leave for L.A., I collected the final leg and headed off to the track in Manchester for it's maiden voyage.

I don't know if it was the excitement of trying something new, or that I was nearing peak fitness before the World's, but the first runs I made with the new leg were extremely promising. By my calculations, I was nearly a half a second faster PER LAP than I was with the previous leg. Some riders train their who lives to gain that sort of an advantage. I got it in one foul swoop. I would still need to spend some time with the leg to get fully comfortable with it, but I could tell straight way that it was going to be a winner. 

And the rest, as they say, is history. In L.A. I won the individual pursuit by 6 seconds in the final. Over 12 laps – that equates to half a second a lap. Coincidence? Perhaps. But as I said at the start: I didn't want to leave anything to chance.

Since the Track World's ended I have gone back to training on the road for road racing and time trialling. I still use Mark I on a daily basis, but have been so pleased with Mark II that am now using it on race days. (And I no longer call it Mark II but have lovingly named it 'Zeus'.) It's not a practical for walking around in so tend to keep it for 'special' occasions. And in preparation for what will hopefully be a gold-medal winning performance, the folks at Pace decided to bling it up a bit. It was recently given the midas touch and painted in gold. The first attempt wasn't quite perfect, so we will be refining the paint job in coming weeks, but you can see that now, more than ever, it stands out from the crowd. A bit like the folks that helped create it.

So, my heartfelt thanks goes out to Howard and the whole team at Pace that worked hard to get it done to my satisfaction and on time, and to Bryce for his input in making it as aero as possible. I'm not sure if there will ever be a Mark III for me, but if, as they say, "third time's a charm", then I feel sorry for my competition if it even comes to be!

Who inspires the inspirational?

Recently I found myself sat in a ballroom listening to a so-called motivational speaker. He had been bought in to try and inspire myself and the rest of the gathered athletes in the room with his tales of how he had overcome adversity, and conquered physical feats thought by many to be impossible. Unfortunately, I found him to be more patronising and self-congratulatory than motivational, but it got me to thinking about what exactly DOES inspire me.


I've said it before - I don't think of myself as an inspiration (see my blog: "I am not an inspiration.") But for the sake of this post, let's just assume that other people still find me to be an inspiration, whether it's because of my physical limitations or just because what I have achieved through hard work. If that's the case and I'm an inspiration to others, where do I look for inspiration? Who or what drives me on and what sorts of things do I find inspirational?


Last weekend I went over to Ireland to join the rest of the Irish Paralympic hopefuls (from all sports) for one of the few remaining Renault Paralympic Preparation camps. We spend a few days together training with our own squads and mixing with the others athletes, getting to know each other better so that when we are thrown together for a month at the end of the summer to compete in London, we won't all be complete strangers. It's a good team-building exercise and packed full of useful info on what to expect and how to handles the stresses of competing in the Paralympics.


A good part of these camps involves various activities designed to bring athletes from the different sports together. There is a natural tendency to gravitate towards the people you know rather than meet new people. In past camps many of us normally sit with our own squads during meals, presentations, etc. You don't interact with other people as much as you should. As we draw closer to the Games, these camps have a greater focus on integrating the athletes. We sit with different people for meals, participate in more group activities and try to get to know each other better.


I admit, in the past I have been one of those people that didn't venture outside my comfort zone very often and stayed close to the teammates I knew. The wide variety of disabilities and unfamiliar faces at these camps can be a little daunting and sometimes it's easier to stay inside your safe zone. But I genuinely want to get to know these people and have embraced the ethos of these camps in recent times. And it's been eye-opening.


My disabilities are fairly simple and straightforward. Nerve damage and an artificial leg. I have had these problems for the majority of my life and they are "stable" conditions – meaning they won't get worse and can't be treated. I have learned to adapt my life and am comfortable with any limitations these conditions present.


At the camp I had the opportunity to chat with a competitor from another sport that had a progressive and degenerative disease. This person shall remain nameless, as will the specifics of their disease. Suffices to say that as they get older, the outlook does not. Couple this with the fact that they have already beaten the odds and remained in fairly good condition for the amount of time that they have had the disease, and that it is likely to get bad for them (to the point of complete debilitation or even death) in the coming years, it's easy to see how they might not have the most positive outlook on life.


And yet... the complete opposite is the truth. This person is happy, upbeat and a fierce competitor. Imagine how easy it would be to be down if you knew your days were numbered and knowing that your remaining days will probably be painful and you may suffer from complete incapacitation? It's one thing to have a mild disability that you will be stuck with for the rest of your life – but that won't cause you too much trouble. It's another thing to have a disease that you know will kill you far before your time. Tick tock, tick tock. It would weigh heavily on me.


To see this person making the absolute most of their life and beating the odds, with the burning desire to succeed at the highest levels of their sport was inspirational TO ME. The challenges of riding a bike with an artificial leg pales in comparison in my opinion. I was humbled to speak with them and get an insight into the life. And this... is what the camps are all about.


Another significant portion of the Irish Paralympic team are boccia players. You'll have to pardon my ignorance here, but I'm assuming that all the players suffer from Cerebral Palsy is varying degrees. Most are wheelchair bound and their ability to speak can be severely impaired. As such, a lot of them struggle to communicate and 'speak' with extremely slurred speech, often almost monosyllabically. Again – in my ignorance, there is also an assumption that because of their poor motor skills, and poor speech abilities, that they are also intellectually challenged. This couldn't be further from the truth. Their legs and mouths may not work very well, but their brains are perfectly fine.


But you see, because their outward appearance made me uncomfortable, and because I made assumptions about their intelligence, I have been uncomfortable being around them in the past. I struggle to understand some of my fully communicative teammates at times, so you can imagine how trying to understand someone with slurred speech might make me feel. Because of this, I have missed out on getting to know some of these great people.


At the latest camp I got over my fears and made a point to be talk with some of these athletes. Again – it's eye-opening to see the challenges they face int heir daily life and yet how positive and upbeat they are. I am like a lot of the general public – I just see the packaging and don't bother looking deeper. I see the disability and not the person. But slowly but surely this is changing for me and I hope these Games in London will help further change perceptions of the public.

These are the people that inspire me. Their success is harder to come by than mine as their obstacles are greater to overcome. And yet, inside they are just like you can me. They just want to do well at their chosen sports and to be respected for it. And I'm sure they also do it because they love it!


Even the Paralympics Ireland staff that work tirelessly behind the scenes, making these camps and indeed my London experience possible, always working for the greater good of the athletes and never thinking of themselves – these people make me want to perform to the best of my abilities. In many ways I feel like I can't let them down. Sure, for many of them it's a job, but not all of them and certainly the passion they bring to their duties go far beyond what any paycheque can reward them with. They are the true believers. They are the ones that will celebrate just as vigorously as any athlete who makes their way onto a podium in London. Their passion rubs off on us all and makes us work harder. They make us believe in ourselves and that anything is possible if we keep working at it. They do it quietly most of the time with a kind word or reassuring smile – much more inspirational to me than most of these so-called motivational speakers.

Lastly, on the way home from the camp, as I was checking my bike in at the ferry terminal, the gentleman at the desk saw my Paralympics Ireland shirt and asked me about it. I explained that I was preparing to compete in London and that I had been away with the rest of the team. He offered to take my bike through for me, saying he 'was proud to help a Paralympic hopeful." He shook my hand several times, wished me well and said "we're all behind you". It's not often I see this sort of public appreciation for what we do and to hear directly from a complete stranger that they were behind us. There was something incredibly uplifting and motivational about that. And so... you, the general public, that quietly or opening show your support for us (and not just those of you directly related to an athlete or member of the team): you inspire me. You make me want to succeed on your behalf. 

I look forward to getting to know my fellow London-bound teammates better over the coming months. Perhaps it's foolish and bold of me to say it, but I would love to be the flag-bearer for the whole team. But to do so will mean I have to know and be known by everyone. I'm not getting to know them because I want to be selected for the role, but because I want to be able to cheer them all on by name when we start to compete come August 30.