Steamboat Adaptive Recreation Sports Program Director Kaleb Cook has a fervor for mountain biking and he wants the participants of STARS to partake in.

Since March, he’s spearheaded a pilot program with Steamboat Resort to promote access to the bike park.

“Through the use of the gondolas, a special contraption, adaptive hand bikes and widened trails we’ve created an environment that allows participants to hit the trails,” said Cook. “Mountain biking is a passion of mine that I’ve wanted to share with the people of STARS.”

The pilot program utilizes special three-wheeled hand mountain bikes, meaning individuals with diminished lower-body mobility can turn a hand crank in the same fashion of pedaling as a foot-powered mountain bike.

For the resort’s part, it’s taken the size of the three-wheeled bikes into consideration with new trails and lift options.

“We’ve resurfaced trails to be wide enough to allow for adaptive bikes, as well as built new trails with adaptive bikes in mind,” said Steamboat Resort Bike Park Manager Kat Stuart. “I think the switch from running Christie chair (last year) to Wild Blue (this year) was also a big help.”

While Wild Blue Gondola is large enough to fit the adaptive cycles, Steamboat Gondola is smaller. The STARS team decided to place a wood plank across the seats of the gondola that raises the one axel of the cycles so that it fits.

The program is not open to everyone yet.

“It’s still in its pilot stage, and is only open to individuals in our veterans camp so far,” said Cook. “We’d like to move ahead with it, but not this year.”

STARS has 10 of the mobility-friendly cycles and also has standard mountain bikes for individuals who can use that.

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To inquire about helping with the program, reach out to STARS Executive Director Susan Peterson at Susan@SteamboatSTARS.com.

“This program has been quite a success and we’ve seen ‘the stoke’ spread across everyone who has taken part so far,” said Cook. “We love that this makes ‘Bike Town U.S.A.’ more inclusive for everyone.”