I saw this story in the Front Range MTBR forum and I was inspired.
Truly an amazing tale of overcoming hardship to the fullest extent.
Sadly, he passed away a few days ago. The fact that useless members of
society like Libby, continue to suck our pockets dry and this humble man
who lifted himself out of a life of recklessness leaves us at 46. 🙁
-HEAD- Rex Patrick conquered addiction, disability and found a new life
on his bike?-BYLN- Jason Blevins Denver Post Staff Writer??-TEXT-
Rex Patrick grinds up a rocky singletrack, nimbly maneuvering his
bike along the steep rutted trail without hesitating.
Patrick has mad skills on a mountain bike.
But his pedaling prowess is underscored by what the 45-year-old
from Littleton does not have: a left leg.
"That whole stand up and pedal or put a foot down thing is foreign
to me," he says. "It's not an option."
Patrick's dexterity on two wheels is inspiring. Ride behind him and
you'll see the panting pedalers he passes dig deeper, inspired by
the frenetic bob of the one-pedal marvel.
"I motivate people, I guess," says the Littleton rider whose
biking skills earned him two medals in Atlanta's 1996 Paralympics.
"When I pass someone, I can see them saying to themselves, 'If
this guy is going like that, what am I complaining about?' That is
a good feeling."
Patrick's inspirational aura covers much more than mountain
singletrack, and it moves well beyond emboldening the disabled. His
story - one he tells reticently - starts with a drinking problem at
age 11. Jail at 12. Intravenous drugs at 16. A drunken car crash in
Nebraska at 17, which cost him his leg but did little to jolt the
son of a drug addict and alcoholic off his careening ride toward an
early grave.
In fact, after losing his leg "it got really bad," he says,
oblivious to the irony of getting much worse than a one-legged
17-year-old alcoholic and drug-addicted high school dropout.
Turns out losing his leg was only a step on a long staircase
spiraling to a dark nadir that rarely allows survivors.
By his late teens, he found the most deadly drug out there and he
was hooked. A methamphetamine addict, homeless and living on the
streets, Patrick went through drug treatment for the 12th time in
his early 20s. A counselor at the treatment center told him there
was nothing left to do. He was going to die.
"Most of the people I knew back then had already died," he says.
"I guessed it was my destiny."
On a last chance effort to shake the life-erasing grip of meth, he
moved to Denver, far from his family and friends in Oklahoma and
Nebraska. He was sleeping in the Samaritan Shelter or on the
streets. He was 100 pounds overweight and smoking more than a pack
of cigarettes a day. He was on the edge, fighting his addiction and
barely surviving.
Then a pal took him skiing. He was 26. On the snow, he found a
reason to fight harder. He dropped the weight and the smokes. He
started racing and teaching disabled skiing. A coach told him he
had tremendous potential as a skier, but he needed to find a way to
stay strong in the offseason.
"A buddy had an old Huffy, he tied my foot to the pedal and I fell
in love," he says. "I started riding everywhere."
Cycling is saving grace
On two wheels, Patrick's disability disappeared. Bike makers like
Schwinn gave him equipment and sponsorship money. He started racing
in 1991, beating even the two-legged pedalers when he quickly
dominated the small world of disabled bike racing.
He logged more than 250 miles a week on a bike. He won the National
Disabled Cycling Championship in 1992 and represented the United
States in the Barcelona Paralympic Games that year.
Four years later, he won two medals at the Atlanta Games, setting a
national record in the 4-kilometer track time trial that stands
today. In 1997, he set another national record for the 200-meter
flying start track time trial.
In 1998, he ended his racing career when he learned he had
hepatitis C, a disease lingering from his drug-injecting days as a
16-year-old. Now, in addition to a job building custom homes, he
works at a home for struggling kids who are fighting their demons.
"I understand how they think," he says.
Today, Patrick has logged 19 years - almost 7,000 days - sober. He
married in April and is a father to a 7-year-old girl. He pedals
year-round, five days a week, dropping the hammer on the dozens of
rocky bike trails in the Front Range foothills. He likes to time
himself racing up lengthy, challenging singletrack at Mount Falcon:
31 minutes, but he's aiming for a sub-30-minute time this winter.
Since he never really rode before losing his leg at the hip, he
knows only one-legged cycling. He likes it that way. And is he ever
good.
"It blows me away what this guy can do with one leg," says Dr.
Andy Pruitt, founder and director of the Boulder Center for Sports
Medicine and a world champion cyclist who has served as a cycling
mentor for Patrick. "He's a survivor of so much. His recovery from
addiction to a successful contributing member of society is a story
in and of itself.
"What this guy has been able to overcome is nothing short of
amazing."
Doing what seems impossible
Patrick pedals like the pros say you should: in a circle. He pulls
up and pushes down, whereas most pedalers don't really pull. When
the trail gets too steep, which is not often, he dismounts and hops
with the precision and power of a mountain goat. Hopping is
exhausting, though. He prefers to stay in the saddle. Sometimes
he'll grab a trailside bush to remain upright while letting his
depleted lungs regain their juice, grunting "Go!" and "Come
on!" as he pushes onward and upward.
Watching him regain forward momentum on a steep slope seems to defy
physics. (Imagine starting up a rocky incline from midslope without
that seemingly essential second pedal stroke to maintain momentum.
Try it. It seems impossible.)
His leg, thick as a grown man's waist, never tires. He flies
downhill through rocky terrain that forces even expert riders off
their bikes, and he never stands out of the saddle, a position
virtually required for downhill riding. His massive arms - chiseled
from 28 years on crutches - pump up and down with every pedal
stroke, adding what equates to a push-up to every rotation.
Denver rider Jimmy Greiner started pedaling with Patrick last
month. On their first ride, Patrick left Greiner in his dust. The
next day, at Mount Falcon, Greiner was determined to keep up.
"My poor sea-level lungs were just starving, and I had to pull
over for a breath of air," says the recent New Orleans transplant.
"And here comes the one-legged wonder blasting past me, telling me
I just got to push through and keep on pushing.
"I realized that probably is what he's been doing most of his
life. I had no choice to but to step up and chase him."
Patrick wasn't born one of those athletically inclined machines who
master everything they try, he says. To be an expert rider, he
works twice as hard as the expert two-pedal pushers.
The reward is twice as rich, he says.
He points to his bike - a new full-suspension Specialized Epic - as
the source of the best high he knows.
"You know that feeling you have right now," he says after a
3-hour, 20-mile ride. "There is nothing like it. Nothing."
Staff writer Jason Blevins can be reached at 303-820-1374 or
[email hidden].
-CUTL- PHOTO: Mateo Leyba Denver Post photos Littleton mountain biker
Rex Patrick removed the left pedal on his bike and would have removed
the left crank completely, but its design on this particular bike
prevented it. "I thought about cutting it, but it's a really expensive
crank," he said. PHOTO: Mateo Leyba Denver Post photos Rex Patrick of
Littleton, who lost his leg in automobile accident at 17, rides through
the rocks of Parmalee Trail at Mount Falcon Park in Morrison. Patrick
started racing in 1991 and won two medals at the 1996 Paralympics in
Atlanta.
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