Parallel Lines: After a rare surfing injury left Cassie Eckroth paralyzed from the waist down, the Reno resident took up adaptive mountain biking.

Cassie Eckroth just wanted to learn how to surf. “I was taking a lesson in April of 2021,” she says of trying the sport for the first time. But not long after paddling out into the water with her board, Cassie says she hyperextended her back and felt a bit pain. “About forty minutes later, I got out of the water. Once I was out, I realized I couldn’t really move or feel anything.”

Cassie says she made her way to the hospital but by then, it was too late: she had suffered an incredibly rare injury called Surfer's Myelopathy that left her paralyzed from the waist down. “It basically slowly cut off the blood flow in my spinal cord,” she explains.

To say Cassie was shocked is an understatement. “Recovery was hard in the beginning," she admits, "As it is I think for many people who suffer from a traumatic injury. And I basically started out thinking that there just wasn’t very much out there to do in the world of adaptive sports. I really didn’t know.”

But Cassie says that, once she was physically and emotionally ready to start putting herself back out there, it was a relief to discover how easy it was to get outside again. “Reno is the biggest little city. Pretty much everyone knows everyone. So, through mutual friends, I found out about the High Fives Foundation. ”

The nonprofit, dedicated to preventing life-changing injuries and providing resources and hope if they do happen, invited Cassie to a community day at Sky Tavern , where she rode her first adaptive mountain bikes. “It was the first thing I tried after my accident,” she says of the sport that she had, until that point, never really tried. “So it has a pretty special place in my heart.”

Cassie says she realized pretty quickly that she wanted to get her own rig. “Before my accident, I was really into hiking and getting into the wilderness, and I thought that part of my life was over. So it was really awesome to get to go back out in a way I never thought I’d be able to again.” With the help of the High Fives Foundation, Cassie was able to try several different types of bikes before eventually settling on two that suited her needs.

“I really liked the Bowhead Reach because it kind of reminds me of an adaptive dirt bike, in a sense,” she explains of her first adaptive mountain bike. “I use it a lot to take my dogs down to the river - my hands aren’t occupied so I’m able to manage them. It’s not necessarily good for exercise because it’s fully electric, but it helps you get all the places you want to go, especially for longer distances.”

To get the kind of exertion-based exercise that’s harder to achieve on the Bowhead, Cassie says she also got a Hammerhead hand cycle. “You’re in a different position, sort of on your knees, bent over the pedals, so it gives you different leverage when you’re pedaling, that also makes me feel more in control when I’m doing any sort of downhill.” Between her two bikes, Cassie says she is able to tackle a variety of styles of riding. “It just depends on what I want to see or what I want to bring with me or where I’m going or how long I want to go,” she says of choosing which bike to bring on a given adventure.

Cassie says the learning curve for either bike never felt all too steep. “I think it’s different for everybody but, for me, even though I wasn’t a big mountain biker, it just felt really natural to get down the feeling of going on the trail. The Bowhead does have full articulation, so that can take some getting used to, to go into your turn and not tip over. But for the most part, for me at least, it was pretty easy to learn. I was very active before my accident, and I’m still very active, so my upper body was already strong and pretty capable.”

And like most folks who pursue sports in the outdoors, Cassie says one of the best parts of becoming a mountain biker, besides gaining access to wilderness again, was building community. “If you live in the Reno-Tahoe area, chances are that you like to do things outside. And because the City of Reno has a great adaptive program, and High Fives is right up in Truckee, there’s a pretty solid community of people with disabilities and also just people who like to ride bikes.” She adds that this also makes the community feel supportive in ways she knows she’s fortunate to experience. “I haven't really met anybody who is afraid to get me out there or go with me to do stuff just because I’m disabled.”

Cassie says having both programs means that not only does she never lack for riding partners, she also has resources when it comes to finding trails that work for her bikes. “The Truckee Trails Association recently started to go through to make sure everything’s wide enough for an adaptive set of tires,” she says as an example. “And also, I get a lot of my trails through word of mouth; if my friends have been on it, I’ll ask if they think my bike can handle it.”

And while Cassie is grateful for how far she’s come since her accident, overall, she is particularly proud of the way she tackled her fears about getting back into sports. “I was very hesitant to do anything,” she admits, especially when it came to trying to surf again. “I told Dani, one of the employees at High Fives and a really good friend, that I never wanted to surf again. Like, don’t even ask me, I’m never going to try it. But after a year, I was like, ‘That’s ridiculous. I just just try everything if I get the opportunity. So overcoming that mind barrier, of being afraid to get hurt again, physically and emotionally, is what I’m most proud of.”

Cassie now surfs on the professional circuit in the adaptive surfing world, closing the loop on her full circle journey that started that fateful day in 2021. She also sit-skis and is constantly thankful for the people and organizations that have helped her get to where she is today. “If I lived somewhere that didn’t have that, I could totally understand how able-bodied people might be afraid to get you out there. So I guess I just want people to not not give someone that chance just because of a disability; if you have the opportunity to help someone who’s disabled get out there, do it!”

To follow along as Cassie pursues her sports and to see what goals she tackles next, you can find her on Instagram .