Biking for everyone

Everyone deserves the chance to ride.

At Brooks, biking is movement, mobility, motor learning, recreation, friendship, confidence, and community participation—all at the same time.

A young rider using an adaptive bike with supportive seating and a rear steering handle.

Why biking?

Because participation should feel like childhood—not just therapy.

Traditional and adaptive bikes give students an active way to move alongside peers. Riding can be purposeful transportation across campus, structured motor practice, physical activity, a social experience, or simply something joyful to do.

Brooks will use the bike that fits the rider. Some students may ride independently. Others may use adaptive seating, trunk or pelvic supports, specialized handlebars or pedals, rear steering, assistance, or a stationary stand. Support is individualized and can change as the rider’s skills grow.

Active mobility

Cycling can give students who use wheelchairs or have limited walking endurance another way to move actively through school and community spaces.

Motor learning

Pedaling, steering, starting, stopping, navigating, and transferring improve through frequent, goal-directed practice in real settings.

Strength and fitness

Adaptive cycling may support reciprocal leg movement, lower-extremity strength, balance, core stability, coordination, endurance, and cardiovascular fitness.

Confidence and choice

Riding gives students a visible, age-respectful way to make decisions, solve problems, experience success, and direct their own movement.

Friends and belonging

Biking creates a shared activity students can enjoy with classmates, siblings, and families—supporting social engagement without separating therapy from fun.

Lifelong recreation

Students discover a leisure option that can continue beyond school and contribute to health, community access, and quality of life.

Motor skills grow through repetition. Brooks plans to make riding part of the school rhythm, with opportunities during movement instruction, adaptive physical education, transitions, outdoor learning, recreation, and community mobility.

A student might ride to the playground, practice navigating a route, build endurance on a stationary stand, join peers outdoors, or use a bike for a purposeful campus trip. The goal is not one identical riding program. The goal is meaningful access to riding.

Fit and safety matter

Adaptive equipment must be selected and adjusted for the individual rider. Therapists and trained staff will consider leg length, head and trunk control, reflexes, positioning, transfers, fatigue, steering, braking, and the supports needed for safe participation. Riding plans will be individualized rather than based on a diagnosis alone.

Evidence and lived experience

What informed this choice.

Brooks’ biking approach is informed by school-based practice, adaptive cycling research, equipment design, and the voices of riders themselves.

Adaptive Tricycles in SchoolsParticipation, motor learning, fitness, school mobility, and frequent contextual practice.Read at Rifton ↗Adaptive TricycleSupport options, adjustability, access features, sizing, and riding benefits.Explore at Rifton ↗A Sixth Grade Student’s Adaptive Bike ReviewA rider’s perspective on confidence, comfort, independence, inclusion, and joy.Read Ana’s review at Rifton ↗

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