Kelly

Kelly is one of the pilots for Ride to Rio Paracycling Program. We train at the track on Friday nights. We have seven wonderful and special cyclists who volunteer their time and skills to pilot both road & track tandems for about a dozen regular blind & vision impaired aspiring athletes. Without the good will, kindness and special qualities of these people the program could not happen. We have a total of 29 blind & vision impaired, amputee, and cerebral pasly athletes in the program

Kelly is a popular choice not only for the tandems but also for the cerebral palsy members. Kelly gets on the single bike in-between tandem efforts and rides with the 'wobblies' giving them encouragement, guidance and confidence on the bike.
I feel very lucky and fortunate to be able to help out with the program which is both rewarding and a hell of a lot of fun.
You may notice the tell tail signs of an experienced racing cyclist; forehead scars from numerous mishaps that unfortunately are very much part of the sport. In fact we were having a bit of a laugh about a dark stain on the track that is about 40-50 cm wide and 2 metres long. The dark, almost black stain is the blood trail left from another pilot, Carla's very nasty accident last November. She spent a few days in hospital for friction burns and skin loss to her face. Not to mention getting the splinters taken out.

Although I like Kelly in colour, I thought the quality of the light was diminished slightly compared to the b&w.

Front wheel blowout on a tandem.