Nick Blincoe sustained a brachial plexus injury playing rugby causing left arm paralysis. But Nick discovered a passion for cycling which has seen him represent NZ as a para cyclist internationally.
Follow Us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/attitudetv
Follow Us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/attitude_tv
See more Videos: https://www.attitudelive.com
Made with funding from NZ on Air
I love going fast. That freedom to be able to go 60km/h is something that you’ve gotta do it to experience it. It’s that adrenaline rush. It’s that pushing yourself — beyond my comfort zone. The next Pinnacle event for me is actually round Taupo. It’s something that I have never done before — longest I’ve ever ridden. I’m Nick Blincoe. I’m a C4 paracyclist, and I have a brachial plexus paralysis on my left arm. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2024. (UPLIFTING MUSIC) Saturday morning routine — get up early, get a few hours’ riding in before, I guess, the family wakes up. Pretty good bunch of ex-Olympians, Commonwealth Games athletes, as well as people who just enjoy riding their bikes. Getting a nice social ride, easy way to get some good fast K’s in. – We’re gonna head this way, round Taharoa, pointing out the holes, rolling from the right. Sweet. – This week is a little bit of a light week after a pretty heavy week last week. So had 130km last Saturday; this morning will be about 70km. (UPBEAT MUSIC) What I love about cycling is the ability to compete, to push myself beyond my comfort zone. Weirdly, that’s something that I love. I love being able to find that hurt, and that’s what I can find in cycling. – Hard! Hard left! – Right! Good! – But it’s also being able to ride against able-bodied cyclists as well. – Whoo-hoo! – Work’s busy, life’s busy, but I need to compete. So that’s why I keep riding, keep racing, I keep having these crazy goals, just cos I love getting out there and riding my bike. I think that also translates to success. If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, then you’re not gonna enjoy the journey that you’re on. (SOFT MUSIC) I should have put our coffee orders in at the top of Taharoa Hill. – Nah, it’s good. – Pass a few more dates. – Yeah, a good ride. – Wind’s out there and I was, like, 80 watts or 100 watts for the first hour. – (LAUGHTER) – A light week this week, so two hours, two and a half hours. – Did you have fun, Daddy? – (LAUGHTER) – Yeah, I had funny— I had fun on my bike. Stacey, my wife, originally from the UK; my daughter, Kyla, and my son, Ashton. so the four of us here in Cambridge. – I met Nick — I’d just moved to Auckland a couple of weeks prior. And I was actually about to move to Australia or go back to Wellington, cos I was hating Auckland. (LAUGHS) – Chop up some strawberries. – And then met Nick and thought, ‘Oh, I’ll give it a bit longer.’ When we first got together, people were absolutely amazed when I said he had a paralysed left arm, cos they didn’t notice it. – How do you want your strawberries? – The only thing he was worried about was when we first had Kyla, how we would manage holding a baby, changing nappies, but he just finds his way. Everything he does, he finds his way. He’s a better cook than me, he’s better driver than me, so he just does it. – I grew up in a pretty sporty family. As a teenager, I really— athletics, rugby, were my two main sports. I was a junior silver medallist at the 200m under-15s national champs; from there, playing first 15 rugby. So I was lucky enough to be selected for the New Zealand Schools’. And in my last year, I got selected for the New Zealand Under-19s to go to Durban, South Africa. When I had my injury, I was playing for Marist North Harbour, Premiers — normal tackle, I hit the guy’s hipbone, hit straight on my brachial plexus nerve, and just the force of the tackle — they compare it to coming off a motorbike into a tree. The nerves come out of the spinal cord. You can’t plug them back in. And then my arm just felt like it was a rubber arm, was not attached to me. Straight away, I kinda knew something wasn’t right. My dad took me straight to hospital. (INSPIRING MUSIC) Early on, it was very much trying to find out how to get use of your arm back. Then from there, when you kinda realise that it’s not coming back, then it’s just dealing with what the outlook was gonna be like — learning to tie your shoes, learning to cut food; all those things that you kind of took for granted, the things that you have to really relearn. I wanted to be an All Black, a professional rugby player, but when you lose the use of your arm, you know that you can’t play rugby again. – Get that hip-back position. – It was actually quite a few years later that I started looking at sport again. – Oh, look at that. – My brother, he directed me to the Paralympic cycling development programme. So I went down to a talent ID camp and really got hooked on cycling. Did some testing, and pretty quickly, they wanted me to continue that journey. Had to buy a bike, and I literally had to learn to ride a bike again. I hadn’t run on a bike since I was a teenager, let alone with one arm. – And he wasn’t very good. He fell in the bushes a couple of times, and it took him a little while, but he’s found his way, and he’s adapted to it. – If you wanna be the best, you need to train with the best — having world-class facilities, but also world-class athletes. It’s not just the Para cycling team that’s a community — it’s the wider cycling network that we have in the New Zealand cycling team in the Waikato. – Go 12 minutes. Progress over 12 minutes. – Yep. – Then you can come in, and we’ll be good to go for that first effort. It’s been a bit of a journey in terms of getting into the high-performance programme. I think a little bit of trial and error, especially with having a left arm that isn’t able to grip on to a handlebar. Try and wrap my thumb around the handlebar as well as I can, but it’s something you’re always looking down, going, ‘Oh, is my arm gonna fly off or not?’ This is my pursuit track bike, specifically for time-trial events. I had a number of modifications done, cos I can’t grip on to these pursuit aero bars, so I had something made and needs to be signed off by the UCI to be able to be used internationally. Very much having to pioneer technology for someone with a brachial plexus injury. – So, what we’re doing for Nick is just sort of a way for him to keep his left hand connected to the bike. We’ve got an existing brace that he had from a previous iteration. So all I’ve made for now is just this little slot here that sits on the handlebar and corresponds with this ball on his brace. – Yeah. – And then, yeah, it just slots in. He’s just got a bit of… not grip, but he can hold on, I guess. – Bit of safety, and then a little bit of stability as well. So ideally it’ll be from a start gate. And then I come down, I sit. As you go around the track, I’ll be able to release it. And then it goes into my aero bar. And this all happens, what needs to happen, hopefully within… – Pretty swiftly. – Milliseconds. – Yeah. So we’ll make another slightly cleaner and sleeker wrist brace. And then, yeah, we’ll just be working to get this part on the bike a bit better, and also making it outta more durable materials. This is really just for 3D-printed, just for prototyping. I wouldn’t want Nick to ride on it — it’ll probably just break. Hopefully from here we can start doing test rides on the track in it. – I guess once testing starts, to see whether it stays in there. Should do. – Yeah. – Seeing you back on here, we get to a rideable format, this is gonna be awesome. – Yeah, conceptually. – Yeah. – Pretty happy with that. First time I’ve seen you using it. – Yeah, it’s cool, eh? It’s that trial and error. I think that’s a big thing with Para sport is there’s a lot of trial and error and, uh, a lot of potential risk, but… try and find those fine gains. (WHIMSICAL MUSIC) Wanna come make coffee, bud? Ashton? Next Pinnacle event for me is actually round Taupo — something that I have never done before, and it’s something that my dad’s always talked about. So it’s something that I can push towards and tick off as a bucket list. Don’t wear my wedding ring out riding cos I can’t feel it and can’t keep it on my left hand. So take it off and make sure I don’t lose it. (CHUCKLES) (MELLOW MUSIC) Just explain a bit about my bike that’s a little bit different to the normal setup. So, having one arm, I had to change the setup on my bike. I have everything on my right side. Push your buttons — goes into the small chain ring. Other button — into the big chain ring. And then the back chain ring is all controlled by the lever here. But I’ve also got brakes all linked on the right side as well, so I’ve got a little hydraulic splitter at the bottom. We’ve manufactured it to be on the right side — works both the front and the rear bike brakes at the same time. Short ride today, so pump up our tyres. Even though I pumped them up yesterday, it’s dropped about 10 psi, so… (UPBEAT MUSIC) We’ll go out Rotoorangi. We’ll go Norwegian reverse, and then anti-clockwise round Puahue back. If anyone wants to do any extras, you can peel off. – This ride’s a way more social ride than yesterday. (ALL LAUGH) – All right, you’re off. – Sounds good. My dad is a passionate cyclist. Growing up with him, doing marathon running and running, he’d always go out for runs with us and push us in runs. Feel fine still competing against each other. Even on a little road ride, you’ll say, ‘Ah, I thought you’d beat me up the hill today.’ Or vice versa. – I admire the fact that he has not let that injury, that was a major change in his life, define what its future might be — he’s just altered the path of that future. And I think where there’s a passion for anything — and he’s obviously got a bit of talent as well, that makes it easier to keep striving. I think you do have a lot of pride when your children pull on a silver fern. It’s a mark of their determination, their success. It is pretty special to be able to get out, ride a few hours once or twice a week with your old man. – Well, at least it wasn’t too hot. – No, she was quite nice. – And no wind. – Yep. – We don’t know what we’re gonna get at Taupo. – At least with Round Taupo, you’re gonna have a tailwind at some point. – It’s just getting out through that first 50 K. – How many Round Taupo’s have you done? – This will be my 11th. – Rainbow! – It’s 150km-plus around the lake, with a lot of climbing in it — Just all over. And challenging. It’s good to see Nick coming into this with a fair bit of mileage in the legs — possibly a little bit more than I have. We’ll find out on the day. – Not sure what to expect — longest I’ve ever ridden. I haven’t ridden anything past 120 K, so that’s a little bit of the unknown is where your body will take you. (CHILL MUSIC) – You guys can rock-paper-scissors for the order. We’ll go three-lap lead-in. I’m happy you take sprinter’s line down into that corner, and then it’s four laps as fast as you can go. – So, I’ve been working with Damien for almost three years now, and he really understands you as a person, you as your disability, finding ways to help you get better. His knowledge of physiology, cycling, Para cycling is second to none. My classification is a C4. So, within single-bike racing, there’s C1 to C5. C1, they classify them as most-disabled; to C5, least—disabled. There’s some with lower-leg amputations, some with upper body extremities. They classify your whole body, then you are slotted into a certain classification. – We’re probably on the track nine months of the year. We’ve come off at different times, depending on some of the other priorities that we’ve got, but otherwise, we’re one or two sessions on the track most weeks. Do you wanna come in? Boom! And then… – The hardest thing is not being able to get out of my seat and to accelerate. So I don’t, I guess, have any strength through my shoulder and deltoids. And I don’t have any tricep use either. Once you get up on the track, I’ll give you three— – Yep. – …and then four from there. – Cool. – Cool. – So when you’re getting out of the saddle and out of the bike, that’s pretty important at the start. Whereas I don’t have that ability, so it’s a seated start for me. We lose a fair chunk of time off that start lap, which is pretty key. Trying to make up a second or two seconds, when you’re going 60km/h, you’ve gotta go quite a bit quicker. – Nick’s done good. He has an added challenge a lot of the time. Being the only parent in the group, he’s often subjected to a lot more bugs in the house. But at the moment, he’s going really good. We’re injury-free and pretty healthy. – A lot of tweaks in my position over the last couple of weeks, so even you feel 5mm change in your bar height, 2mm change in your seat height. It’s all those little tweaks that’s just trying to iron things out for the World Champs. – Next up on the track, from New Zealand, is Nick Blincoe. (CROWD CHEERS) – To appear in this Flying— – World Champs Flying 200 was my best result there, as a seventh place. Scratch Race was probably the highlight of the World Champs. – From New Zealand, Nick Blincoe. – In terms of result, it wasn’t my highest placing at the games, but Ben and I took a lap early on. That was pretty amazing, seeing Ben, and us working together to be able to take that lap. And him going on to win a medal. Pretty close-knit team. There’s only a few of us in Cambridge. Yeah, we all want everyone to do well. Even though it is an individual sport, you can’t hold it against someone who’s going faster than you. It either pushes you to keep going or… help them in any way possible. – That foot. – This foot. Which one’s this one? It’s your? – Left foot! – Good boy. It’s pretty hard, having a young family. Ready… – Ready… – Feel you do miss out sometimes. They grow so fast. – Two, one, go. (RATTLE!) – (CHUCKLES) ‘We’re lucky with Para cycling. We’re not away all the time.’ Should Dad have breakfast now? – No. – No? ‘On the other hand, it’s nice as they’re getting a little bit older, they understand what I’m doing, ‘get a bit excited about Dad representing New Zealand in cycling.’ – Ooh! – It’s not sacrifices, as such. It’s just a big juggling act, especially now with the kids. If he’s got competitions, I have to make sure that I book leave, so I’m off work. We can’t expect family to help out with the kids for a week, or a month, like he was for World’s. – Ah! – I’m lucky enough to be a high-performance athlete, so we do get some financial support. It’s not enough to live off, with me being a father — I do work full-time as well, but that support that we get does allow me to be able to do my sport. (CHILL MUSIC) – How are you today? – Good, Lauren. Yeah, good. – Come through. – Everything’s a wraparound support at the velodrome. – Left calf’s been cramped-up a bit? – Yeah, bit of a cramp. Bottom of the pedal-strokes. – So I thought we might have a little look at— it’s a bit like one of the prehab exercises. – You get physio support, nutrition support, and we’ve got a sports psychologist. Lauren works with the Para cycling team. She understands the needs of Para athletes. – We’ve got a new project looking at how Nick gets the force through his left leg, through to the pedal. And he’s had some previous ankle sprains. – Yeah, from my rugby. It creates a few limitations. – So we’re just trying to see whether working on the foot and the calf, helps to better engage the whole leg. All right, let’s look into it. Think if you’re on the bike. – It is really difficult to get to a Paralympic Games. Tokyo was one of those situations where I did miss out. We weren’t able to get overseas, cos of Covid, to maintain a third spot. It was difficult at that time, and I kind of realised after that that I had put everything out there to get to Tokyo. And when it didn’t happen, it did hit me pretty hard. The scar on my leg was operation after my brachial plexus injury. They took nerve from my calf and plugged it into my arm, really. It took, I think, about eight or nine months for there to start being flickers in my arm. It’s kind of my shark-attack scar, really. Talking to Damien and talking to a sports psychologist is finding enjoyment in what we do and the why. – That was the one that was quite shaky before, wasn’t it? – Yeah. It was stable. I wanna keep competing cos I enjoy it. – Good. That was a good one to do, cos it already told us what it needed. But I just enjoy riding my bike. And that’s what I wanna get across to young cyclists — don’t worry about selections. Don’t worry about the Games. Get out, ride your bike — enjoy what you do. How am I feeling about the challenge? I guess a little bit nervous, a little bit excited as well. – Five, four, three, two, one. (HORN BLARES) (SYNTH MUSIC) – Racing with my dad and a few people I know. Not sure how I’m gonna go against my dad. I think we’ve just gotta enjoy it together. But I’m sure there’s a little bit of competitiveness between us too. First part — I’m trying to just settle in. I decided to jump in a faster bunch, so I might not have that luxury. I don’t see too many issues with my arm in terms of the long ride. I get a bit of fatigue sometimes in my right arm, but I’ve been doing 130K, 140K rides and seem to be coping with that. But again, it’s 160 K. Especially racing — racing’s a different kettle of fish compared to training rides and things like that. It’s a lot more pressure, a lot faster, harder. You can’t predict what’s gonna happen. I think the ride’ll take me… I’m hoping four and a half to five hours, so anything under five hours is kind of that key barrier that everyone talks about. It’s a different challenge for me. – Go, go, go! – Coming from a sprint background, now doing 160 K’s round the lake — it’s one of those bucket list kind of rides. I love racing. I love pushing the boundaries, seeing where my body can take me. (TRIUMPHANT MUSIC) – That was so good, Daddy. – (CHUCKLES) Thank you. – Well done. – Thank you. – High five. – High five? So amazing, having my family here. They’re such a rock for me. You know, seeing them at the finish line — inspirational. My time was just over four hours 30. I thought my shoulder might get a little bit sore after that long, long period of time. Just sometimes, you know, hitting bumps and wind, my left arm would kind of flap off the handlebar. So coming in at 433 is pretty good. Go, Dad! Go, Carlo! Go, Dad! – (CHEERING) Yeah, not being competitive or anything, but I beat my dad by a little bit. Go, you. – Great effort. – Yep. Bragging rights at the moment, but I’m sure he’ll come back next year. And hopefully we can ride the whole thing together. – You have to be real happy with that. – Yeah. – Especially for your first one! – Yeah, well, that’s the problem now. – (BOTH LAUGH) – You’ve got the bug now. – I think, kinda, yeah, a year ahead at the moment in terms of cycling. – Awesome, brother. – It’s just enjoying it at the moment and taking it event by event. I recommend sport for people with disabilities. It creates freedom, creates a community. Cycling is what I’ve found and what I love. And it’s been a great outlet for me, being able to find my second chance.
1 Comment
such a nice man he has done amazing things plus is a great papa