Two-wheeled self-confidence: Special bikes for special kids

Year after year, Colin MacDonald could hardly stand it for more than a few minutes. The frustration was just too great.

The 10-year-old Yardley student had to steer, balance, pedal, and watch the road - all at the same time.

Riding a two-wheel bike for Colin, who has a form of autism, seemed insurmountable, no matter how many shiny new bicycles or fresh attempts at lessons.

So word of a special camp with custom-designed bicycles to teach people with disabilities came as welcome news. Perhaps he might have a better chance of joining in an activity that seemed a youthful rite of passage for everyone but him.

This week, Colin and 23 other young people are participating in iCan Bike, a Paoli-based program that aims to turn riding a bicycle into something everyone can achieve.

"A lot of children with disabilities are at a disadvantage when it comes to socializing and being included in community," said social worker Stephanie DeSouza, director of an iCan Bike summer session at Holland Middle School in Bucks County. "They don't fit in, and this is one more thing they can't do."

Riding a bike can help foster interaction with peers and family, and also boost self-confidence, DeSouza said.

The program is an initiative of iCan Shine, a nonprofit that offers recreational learning opportunities for people with disabilities. Founded in 2007 under its former name, Lose the Training Wheels, the organization last year offered 90 iCan Bike programs in 32 states and two provinces in Canada, serving nearly 2,500 people with disabilities.

A new bike camp is scheduled to begin Aug. 19 at St. Joseph's University.

"It's one of the few things a child can do independently of parents and have control of where and how fast they want to go," said Jeffrey Sullivan, of Malvern, who cofounded iCan Shine. "It's the sense of independence and accomplishment."

The program uses a special bike invented by Richard Klein, a retired mechanical-engineering professor, who started operating bike camps in the 1990s. Cone-shaped rollers are attached to the back wheel.

The iCan system uses eight sizes, each tapered so that the cones have a different degree of contact with the ground. As riders become more proficient in balancing, rollers are switched progressively to those with less ground contact.

"We don't tell them we are going to change from one roller to the next. We don't want to stress them out," Sullivan says. "So when they're ready, we tell them: 'Great job. Go get a drink of water.' Then we flip the roller. When they come back, they jump back on."

Each camper is constantly monitored by at least one camp volunteer, preferably two.

On Wednesday, the third day of the five-day camp, Declan Kelly, 18, of Doylestown, became the first in the week's 8:30 a.m. session to ride solo.

Amid the applause and "woo hoos," Kelly, who has Down syndrome, glided in for a triumphant fist-pump with his mom, Deb Corsini.

"I'm so proud of him." Corsini said.

Kelly said he was taking the lessons because "I want to ride bikes with my friends."

The most difficult part of the camp was "the crash," Kelly said. The best: his solo ride.

"It was so good, so good," he said.

The Holland camp is being hosted by AMICA (from the Latin for friend), a group founded by DeSouza that helps youngsters with autism enhance their social skills.

ICan Shine partners with community groups to host the camps and supply the bicycles and supervising staff. Campers must be at least 8 years old to participate.

About 80 percent of iCan Shine campers successfully learn to ride during the camp. For the remaining 20 percent, organizers teach parents how to continue the lessons.

Mariah Drenth-Cormick watched from the bleachers as daughter Kathryn Drenth, 8, circled the gymnasium on her bike.

Drenth-Cormick, who runs the Bucks County Down Syndrome Interest Group, a parent support group, has been waiting for her daughter's eighth birthday so that she could enroll her in the camp.

Kathryn has been so enthusiastic that she tried several times to break for the gymnasium door so that she could ride outside in the parking lot - something reserved for more-advanced campers, said her "spotter," Matt Krumenacker, 17, of Doylestown, a camp volunteer.

But if Kathryn can't ride solo by her last session Friday, her mom says she's OK with that.

"I hope she's closer to riding it than when she started," Drenth-Cormick said, "and that she has the confidence that will take her closer."