Jessica Cox spent years fuming about not being able to ride a bike.
Born without arms, the 31-year-old Tucson resident is relentlessly competitive. She remembers βhaving a fitβ in a park at the age of 12 when she couldnβt ride as fast as her older siblings. She tried training wheels, a tricycle and prosthetic arms. Nothing was good enough.
βI was furious I couldnβt ride a bike like my brother and sister,β said Cox, who is a motivational speaker and disability-rights activist.
This Saturday is time for vindication. Cox will be riding the 40-mile portion of El Tour de Tucson in a recumbent bicycle she steers with her rib cage.
βIt has been a process over the course of years, getting to this level,β Cox said. βIt was not a question of could or couldnβt, it was how can I make this happen?β
Cox has employed that same line of thinking to everything she has tackled in her life, often to the disbelief of others. She uses her feet as hands, for everything from putting in contact lenses to driving a car and pumping gas. Sheβs flown a plane on her own, regularly competes in tae kwon do, plays piano and has completed a degree in psychology at the University of Arizona.
The way Cox saw the world as she grew up, her legs and feet were wired to her brain the same way other people use their arms. She did have to get through what she now calls βthe anger of childhoodβ as she faced obstacles.
But anger was her way β not sadness or self-pity. She is happy about that.
βThe anger gave me the drive to do a lot of things,β she said. βAnd my parents were always there for me, able to facilitate.β
Riding a bike was never really the problem. It was riding it fast that was the issue. A few years ago, Cox shifted her thinking from wanting to ride an upright bike. She used to ride a large tricycle, but it tipped over and she never felt she could go fast enough.
Once she got comfortable with the idea of a three-wheel recumbent bike, the transformation began. Getting married also helped. Her husband, Patrick Chamberlain, 30, encourages his wife.
βOriginally our conversation was about running. But Jessicaβs knees are so important to her life, and we worried about long-term implications,β Chamberlain said.
Chamberlain got his own recumbent bike, and the couple began riding together. Their bikes have flags on the back to warn drivers who might not see them because they sit so low. Chamberlain once had to get off his bike, stand up and wave his arms in front of a driver who was about to turn right and clearly did not see she was going to hit his wife. He intervened just in time.
βWe have to be defensive and stick together,β Cox said. βI was scared of the road. We donβt cycle at night or even at sunset β just in broad daylight.β
Coxβs recumbent bicycle from Texas-based Scarab Trikes, which has a brake she operates with her foot, has been custom-fitted to include an electric, push-button gear changer from the local HMS Bikes and two steering handles from a Tucson company that adapts vehicles for people with special needs. The handles sit vertically alongside her torso. She uses her rib cage to lean on the handles to steer the bike left and right.
Cox has posted a video of herself cycling on YouTube and wants to be an example to kids who are trying to navigate life without arms. She and Chamberlain often ride from their northwest-side home to the Rillito River path.
βThree moms have already contacted me,β she said.
Cox will not be the first person with physical challenges to ride in an El Tour event. El Tour spokeswoman Marilyn Hall says people who donβt have use of their legs always ride hand cycles, and in the past visually impaired people have ridden in the back seat of a tandem bicycle. The only rule is that no motorized bicycles are allowed, Hall said.
βJessica is a wonderful story,β Hall said. βShe is very fit and athletic, and just amazing.β
Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Tucson, who has physical challenges as the result of being shot through the brain in 2011, recently told USA Today that she wanted to ride her recumbent bike in this yearβs El Tour. A spokesperson for Giffordsβ political action committee did not return phone or text messages or an email asking about whether Giffords is still planning to ride.
Cox fashioned herself a water bottle that hangs around her neck and took the clips off her cycling shoes because it was impractical to unclip every time she wanted to change gears or brake.
Since their recumbent bikes are heavy, the couple usually ride 10 to 12 miles per hour, and Chamberlain is concerned about finishing the 40-mile event, which starts at noon. He worries they might finish after the course closes at 5 p.m.
But his wife isnβt fretting. She talks excitedly about the times when she is able to ride fast.
βIt is an awesome feeling of freedom, with the air blowing in your face. I am a speed demon,β she said. βIβm kind of making up for all those years.β
