Inspiring | life-changing | adventure

One of the best things about an ICE Trike is the difference they can make to peoples lives. Every week riders from all over the world send us their inspirational stories of how their trikes have changed their lives. We were lucky to meet Vicky and her amazing daughter CeCe this year and witness first hand how riding one of our trikes has helped her confidence and cycling ability in so many ways. CeCe is a real star and an inspiration to others. 

Congratulations to CeCe who has been chosen as 2024 Cycling UK's top #100womenincycling. Nominated for "championing joy and accessibility on wheels", CeCe enjoys her ICE Adventure and is now even leading group rides in the New Forest!

VICKY BALFOUR

In January 2023 three Mums fastened trailers to their bikes and set off to tow their three children around a section of Cycling UK’s Rebellion Way in Norfolk. The recent increase in the number of long-distance recreational cycling routes in the UK is very exciting and inspirational for many, but not all cyclists are able or want to do long rides, so we wanted to show that even with children in tow and massively reduced mileage it was possible to have a proper adventure.  

Fast forward a year and the same Mums (Kelly-Jayne Collinge, Phoebe Sneddon and me, Vicky Balfour) were thinking about their next inclusive bikepacking trip only this time there was an extra child and my daughter CeCe had decided she no longer wanted to be towed!

CeCe is a glorious young woman with a passion for cycling, people and adventure as well as a number of disabilities that mean she’s generally struggled with the cognitive load of cycling independently. While a recumbent trike addresses CeCe’s balance issues and electric assist helps with endurance, it wasn’t until we tried the Adventure trike with the Enviolo hub that we realised there was a chance for CeCe to ride independently.

We’d first tried the Adventure trike last autumn when Phil popped along to our local Limitless Cycling Club session at Cyclopark in Kent. While we chatted, I explained the problems CeCe has with the concept of gears and how I thought that would prevent her ever riding more than a flat cycle path. A knowing smile spread across Phil’s face, and he asked me to wait a minute while he got a new trike out of the van. The Adventure trike is one of the first to use the Enviolo automatic hub. Like an automatic car, this hub changes gears without the rider doing anything. 

You simply set the desired cadence (speed that you’ll pedal at) on the Enviolo app and then the automatic hub shifts gears to make sure you never have to pedal at a different rate. Within a few laps of the track at Cyclopark it was clear that CeCe was going to enjoy riding the Adventure trike and my mind was racing ahead to our planned bikepacking ride in Yorkshire in January.

One of the Mums in our group, Kelly-Jayne Collinge, is Komoot’s UK Cycling Community Manager and she was working on a project to launch the new Route YC ride in North Yorkshire. Route YC is a loop of the Yorkshire coast which the route planners hope will be accessible to as many riders as possible. With that aspiration in mind, we decided once again to create a little taster version of the route and see how three Mums, two toddlers in trailers, a 7-year old and CeCe on her ICE Adventure trike faired on it. As with last year’s ride in Norfolk we were lucky enough to take a videographer, Monet Adams, with us and she captured the story.  Last year’s film, Along for the Ride, won awards at Kendal Mountain Film Festival which has helped to spread the word that bikepacking can be for all cyclists and folk.

Basing our trip on The Cinder Track which links Scarborough and Whitby on the North Yorkshire Coast, we were confident that the whole route would be accessible for the trailers and the Adventure trike even if the unpredictability of cycling with youngsters meant we wouldn’t be able to make the whole ride in one go. Part of the joy of our adventure-Mum-group is that we have no expectations of our rides. The single most important thing is that all members of the group enjoy themselves and when it gets too much for anyone, we’re happy to replan and/or stop.

While the Adventure trike reduces the mental load of cycling for CeCe, it’s still a complex skill for someone with learning disabilities, and a visual impairment which removes depth perception. Cycling on roads, hills and uneven terrain all require planning and coaching and can leave CeCe feeling exhausted.  With patience and practice these skills are coming and the joy of being ‘one of the group’ make it all so worthwhile. The sense of pride and self-belief on CeCe’s face when she realises she can ride with everyone else is heartwarming and inspires us to carry on building her cycling experience and skills.

You can watch the film 'Kids & Coastlines’ above to see us in action.

Huge thanks to Phil and ICE Trike for lending us the Adventure Trike for the trip, to Emmie Collinge for capturing beautiful images of the trip and to our other supporters:

• Komoot komoot.com
• Velocio Apparel velocio.cc
• Alpkit alpkit.com
• Cycle Sprog cyclesprog.co.uk
• Didriksons didriksons.com
• Cotic cotic.co.uk
• Veloforte veloforte.com
• Emmie Collinge photography @emmiecoll

Six months on from our Route YC adventure, CeCe's Adventure trike is continuing to bring more growth and joy. CeCe is comfortable riding a couple of local traffic-free routes and thinks nothing now of inviting friends to ride with her. The self-belief that comes from independence is magical and crosses over into all areas of life.

Vicky & Cece also feature in the August / September issue of We are Cycling UK, read more here on pages 6-7.

https://www.cyclinguk.org/publication/cycle-magazine-augustseptember-2024

Keep enjoying your new trike CeCe, from us all at ICE.