This month’s spotlight is Michael Lykins out of Washington state! Michael recently attended the KBF Mountain Bike camp after receiving a Try It First grant to try out some mountain bikes. 

The past few years have been a journey of transitions and new begins for Michae. His journey, however, started with wheelchair rugby.“For nearly two decades that I’ve had a SCI, my primary form of recreation has been wheelchair rugby,” says Michael. He was shown the wheelchair rugby documentary called Murderball while in rehab and after being a competitive athlete his entire life pre-injury, “I knew I needed to get involved ASAP,” he says. Michael started playing with the Seattle Slam team just four months after his injury and he then played for the next 18 seasons. 

Inspired by his own lived experience and the impact that adaptive sport had on his life post-injury, Michael pursued a career in Recreation Therapy. “On so many levels,” he explains, “it’s incredibly important to be active, have meaningful hobbies, and especially be involved in a good community.” Knowing the power that recreation had on his life post-injury, “I want to be someone who can bring that positive impact to others,” he says. Ultimately, Michael’s goal as a recreation therapist is to “give back to a community that has meant so much to me.” 

During his Recreation Therapy schooling, Michael had an internship with the adaptive sports program Outdoors For All in Seattle, Washington. “This internship exposed me to several adaptive outdoor recreation activities and I had an amazing time with all of them,” such as kayaking, cycling, and rock climbing he explains, “but adaptive mountain biking is what really sucked me in and caused me to fall in love.” He immediately signed up for the program as a participant and has been “constantly looking for any opportunity to get on the trails,” he says.

For Michael, mountain biking “checks all of the boxes.” The sport introduced Michael to a new “amazing community,” helped him relearn the value of connecting with nature outdoors, and discover a sense of personal competition. “It’s fast-paced and intense with just the right amount of danger and risk,” he says. “I want to help grow the community of adaptive mountain bikers by being an advocate, and eventually even becoming a coach.”

The past few years have been full of change for Michael, from the transition away from rugby into his new career and beyond. “I’m just so very grateful for the opportunity to not only get to participate in this new sport I’ve fallen in love with,” he says,  “but also feeling like I was immediately accepted into this awesome community of rad humans.”

Congratulations to Michael for his new beginnings!