New Bike Order

So you've read my introduction, which mostly gives an insight about my past, now for the present...

These days I tend to ride a mix of downhill and cross country, I have a Specialized SX Trail that I use as a cross-country come all mountain bike, admittedly it is a bit on the heavy side and a bit worn out. I also have an Orange 224 that I use for more aggressive downhill tracks.

Having read about the apparent benefits of 29ers I was particularly interested in their ability to smooth out the trail but wasn't prepared to loose the agility I'm used to with a 26" wheel bike. What I really needed was something in-between... cue the 27.5/650b fad/craze/hype and with it the release of the Santa Cruz Bronson.

I was hooked, it was the best looking bike I'd seen in a while and appeared to be the bike for me, I read a lot of reviews that all seemed to concur - this is a truly well designed bike.

So while I had some money burning a hole in my pocket, the urge wasn't hard to resist, I bit the bullet and ordered a custom built Bronson Carbon through Bromley Bike Company.

Next was the hard bit - waiting...

I ordered the bike mid August, as I wanted a custom build Bromley Bike Company placed an order for a Large Carbon Bronson in Tennis Yellow. At this point it I found out that every man and his dog had the same idea as me, Santa Cruz had something like 4 times the orders for the Bronson than they expected. I was gutted to hear that I was going to have to wait 4 months until the frame would be delivered, I just kept telling myself it was going to be worth it!

Introduction

So I've never posted anything like this before, but I thought my experiences could prove useful to others out there with a Brachial Plexus Injury or similar circumstances. 

I'm 26 years old and have been riding since I was about 13, when I was 19 I had a pretty horrific crash on my bike during which I tore all 5 of the nerves in the Brachial Plexus, C5 - C6 - C7 - C8 & T1. 

This left me with a paralysed left arm. 

There are a few videos about my accident and my riding, this one gives a good insight to my crash and my initial riding...

Since then I have kept the same bike but experimented with different forks and brakes, and played with my orange 224 downhill bike for my extreme riding. 

One thing that I haven't had much chance to improve is how I manage my paralysed arm, obviously I can't move it properly or hold on to my handle bar, so I've made do with my sling. Whilst my sling is helpful to hold my arm up out the way in the event of a crash, I have seen and I'm jealous of, the benefits fellow Brachial Plexus rider Tom Wheeler realises using his arm brace, which gives him a lot more support on the bike but does not easily detach when required. 

I have dabbled with braces when I was riding with Disability Sport Wales and British Cycling's Paracycling development team, although sadly these braces always failed when it came to the locking mechanism; either they fell off unexpectedly or they did not disconnect in the event of a crash. 

Thats enough about me for now, any questions?