Brian Bartlett Rides Into Town
Mountain biking enthusiast and PACE patient Glenn Johnstone (pictured left) was riding high recently when he met one of his biking heroes.
Glenn was attending the SPEEAD (Sporting Prosthetics for Everyday and Elite Athletes with a Disability) inaugural Scientific Conference in Glasgow, Scotland on 3rd September. The event included a presentation by PACE’s own Jamie Gillespie, who provided an overview of his masters degree research into sports prosthetics. Glenn was particularly interested to see another guest speaker, professional downhill mounting bike racer Brian Bartlett from Seattle, America (pictured below L-R Brian & Glenn). Glenn has been following Brian's mountain biking career and devlopment of the new prosthetic knee for a number of years.
Event organiser, Sarah Deans said "We were delighted to have had Brian as a speaker and hope that prosthetic users in the UK can benefit from his incredible design in the future"
As an above knee amputee, Brian was demonstrating his self-designed and developed new prosthetic knee device that enables him to compete in extreme mountain biking events, where he can stand and sprint out of the saddle. Until now this has movement has been unheard of at this level of amputation.
An emotional Glenn said “I felt like a kid at Christmas. It was fantastic to meet and chat with him. I'm so grateful that the team at Pace made this happen . As an above knee amputee myself, it is so inspirational what he can achieve on a bike. His knee device is awesome!”
Glenn hopes to be the first amputee in the UK to receive this innovative design.
We hope to being you more news on this exciting development in the future.
If you are interested in more information regarding PACE Rehabilitation, please contact PACE Referral Centre (Telephone) 0845 4507357, (Fax.) 0161 428 5852 or email: info@pacerehab.com