In our inaugural year we successfully graduated 15 children. These children have designations such as Autism Spectrum Disorder; Tourettes; Asperger’s Syndrome; Downs Syndrome; learning disabilities and low income. This program was such a success that it was presented to British Columbia and Alberta in November. The plan is to launch out West in 2004 and across the province in May 2003. Currently participants travel from Toronto, Mississauga, Oakville, Burlington, Barrie and Milton.

We never realized the implications of what we had started. We expected 7-10 kids just coming out to have fun, but we have had to turn kids away due to lack of bikes and equipment. The kids that did complete the program are earning respect from their peers, they are proud of their trophies no matter what placing, they give each other high fives at the finish line, they cheer each other on while on the track, they egg each other on at the gate and they smile the whole time they are racing.

We are all learning from these special children, learning patience, understanding, respect and we realize the courage that it has taken for some of them to come this far. We received a thank you card from Andrew S. one of the participants in it he wrote “thank you for believing in me when I did not believe in myself”. All this young man needed was someone to believe in him and all of our instructors helped him to do that. What impresses me the most is that the regular racers at the track share their Pokemon cards or Gameboys at break time. No one looks at the Riders Ready kids as anything but BMX racers. They have become part of our BMX family.