In '82 Ball went out for a day of hang gliding. Winds were gusty, and without a constant, strong wind to carry him, Ball thought it would be educational to fly under less-than-ideal conditions. If friends had been with him he would've advised them not to fly. But Ball believed he was invincible. He'd been hang gliding for more than a year and had walked away from previous crashes unscathed.

'Nothing can hurt me,' Ball remembers thinking as he soared 90 feet in the air at 20 mph. Then the wind suddenly quit, Ball's speed instantly dropped, and he plummeted to the ground. The landing was hard, rough and fast, breaking his back and leaving him paralyzed from mid-chest down. As a result, he has no sensory response or motor control in his lower body or control of his stomach muscles.

Don't start feeling sorry for the 44-year-old South Hadley, Massachusetts, resident, though. Sixteen years after the accident, he's still doing the things he enjoys: downhill skiing, kayaking, marathon running and mountain biking.

In fact, you may have seen him at Mount Snow making that arm-powered ascent to the top of the downhill run in a One-Off Titanium handcycle. The handcycle (and the epic climb) was the brainchild of Mike Augspurger of One-Off Titanium.

'When Mike told me I was going to climb Mount Snow I laughed my ass off,' Ball says. 'He left a message saying 'I've been sending out press releases and flyers telling everyone you're going to climb Mount Snow. I thought you ought to know.' ' Ball wasn't even hesitant: 'If there ever was somebody to take a challenge like that it would be me.'

Only nine months before the phone call, Augspurger was looking for a paraplegic to test his titanium handcycle. That's when he met Ball, and the friendship (and admiration) quickly grew. 'He's just one of those disgusting, natural athletes,' Augspurger says of Ball. 'It's just one of those gifts.'

Once the Mount Snow goal was set, Ball's only determination was to make sure he reached the top. Time didn't matter.

'There was never a question of not making it. My arms are like your thighs. I had the power to do it. I had a low enough gear that climbing wasn't hard--I could've always gone slower with zero effort if I needed to.'

When he reached the summit, Ball says he was tired, glad it was over, but only moderately excited. 'I took a few pictures, looked around and got ready for the ride down,' he says. 'I achieved what I set out to do. But I could've gone twice as hard if I had to.'

Ball began cycling in high school where he'd ride a road bike to train for the ski team. He also participated in a few offroad adventures such as hiking up the Grand Tetons and riding down. But that was about as far as his bike background went.

Once he and Augspurger met, thought, Ball started testing the One-Off and got hooked on mountain biking. He competed in his first downhill and dual-slalom races at Mount Snow in '98. 'I missed qualifying by a half-second in the dual,' he says. 'But with practice I could be at the other racers' pace.'

Ball also downhill skis using a mono-ski chair, and even taught downhill skiing from a Honda quad runner for a while. He still kayaks and competes in marathons, too. His first marathon was the '92 Burlington Marathon in Vermont. He originally wanted to compete in a relay version, but race officials claimed someone in a wheelchair would have an advantage over an able-bodied runner and refused to let Ball compete.

'So I said I'd show them and ran the whole thing by myself in a borrowed race chair,' he says. 'I finished it in 2:56.' Since then he's competed in five3 marathons, some in handcycles: 'You have to have gears,' he says, comparing them with race chairs. 'You're crazy not to. It makes things that much easier.'

Ball's mentality of being invincible didn't begin when he started crashing while hang gliding, though. It started when he was a kid at the Massachusetts ski resort that his father ran. There, he began alpine skiing when he was three years old.

Fearless, he'd jump moguls and continued to ski and jump in school. As his jumping improved he grew bored with the smaller ramps, and ventured to a larger, professional-size jump across town. After successfully landing a few jumps, Ball was hooked--and his lack of fear escalated.

'I liked danger when it was quickly available,' Ball says. 'I had confidence and smarts. I thought I was invincible and used to enjoy walking on the edge and looking over. Now I walk more on a 2x4 than the edge--and carefully peer over. Couch potatoes would probably say I'm as crazy as before,' he says, 'but I don't take risks any more.

'Given the knowledge, abilities and what I've learned, I'm living a safer lifestyle. I'd love to hang glide again, but have elected not to. There are so many trees here, and I'd need help to do it. Plus, I don't want my family to worry.' Last winter he broke his collarbone in a skiing accident. That was bad enough.

'I'm lucky. Others have this happen to them much younger. They don't get to experience all I did before the accident.'

And even after the accident, Ball seemed to be blessed. His recovery amazed doctors and nurses. Six months after the fall he was out of the hospital and living under his mother's care. A year later, he as on his own. Still, there's always second-guessing.

'I just wish I had more extensive injuries when I crashed before this happened,' he says, referring to episodes he walked away from unscathed. 'Maybe they would have made me realize I wasn't indestructible.'

Mountain Bike, August 1999
Volume 15 Number 8

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