Beginning this Saturday, May 4 at 11 a.m., New Paltz native Gabriela O’Shea will host a community bike ride on the River-to-Ridge trail in New Paltz as part of Love Your Brain’s Ride for Resilience campaign. O’Shea has always loved cycling, but was the victim of a hit-and-run on September 11, 2016, while riding on Route 299 towards the Shawangunk Ridge on a beautiful early-autumn day.
O’Shea, then aged 25, was struck by a Jeep from behind, just past the intersection of Butterville Road and Albany Post Road. There were and still are no bike lanes on that heavily cycled roadway, but O’Shea was hugging the white line on the eroded shoulder of the road when she was struck. As another car was approaching from the opposite direction, the driver of the Jeep did not slow down, nor did she give O’Shea adequate buffer space. While O’Shea has no memory of the crash, the witness driving the oncoming car said that she was thrown 30 feet into the air, leaving her in a coma for a month, with life-threatening injuries, including a traumatic brain injury (TBI). The driver of the Jeep drove away, but was later apprehended.
Since that time, O’Shea has lobbied with other cycling enthusiasts to urge Ulster County to put in bike lanes or, at the very least, standard shoulders along the road for the safety of both cyclists and pedestrians.
Despite these setbacks, O’Shea has worked religiously to bring her mind and body back to health, to the point where she is able not only to ride her bike again, but also to celebrate the sense of freedom and joy that cycling gives her with friends and members of the wider New Paltz community and beyond.
“When I first came out of my coma, I told my Mom and Dad that I couldn’t wait to ride my bike again,” recalled O’Shea, who at the time did not realize the extent of her injuries and the painstaking rehabilitation work that would be in her future to even begin to walk. With her parents and loved ones by her side, O’Shea committed herself to a daily regime of physical and mental rehabilitation.
Two years later she was at the BOCES parking lot off Route 32 with her father and fellow cycling-safety advocate and friend Rosemary Quinn, balancing on the bike for the first time since the crash. “I remember asking my Dad if they had training wheels for adults,” she said with a laugh. “But I remember being nervous and both of them holding onto either side of the bike and me taking those first few pedals and then…I felt like I was sailing!” She added that her Dad was walking and then running so close to her that she had to tell him to move back. “He was making me so nervous,” she said. “But I understood.”
Asked what it has meant to her to be able to get to the point where she can ride a bike again, after sustaining so many injuries and undergoing surgeries, she said, “It holds so much meaning and proof that ‘Yes I can!’ My heart and soul were lifted to the sky when I could ride again.”
O’Shea said that it was not an easy path. It took her years to accept that her abilities had changed, that she was disabled. “I’ve worked so hard on regaining basic fundamentals, and then gaining autonomy and going back to school and having a social life, that this makes me feel like I haven’t been defeated, and that I can and I will and that I am.”
In her efforts to lobby for bike lanes and safety measures for cyclists and pedestrians, O’Shea did several “Share the Road” rides with like-minded people that went from the Wallkill River west to Butterville Road, close to where she was hit.
Everyone has the same rights on the roads, whether you’re walking, riding a bike or driving a vehicle. O’Shea believes that this message needs to be made clear, and that bike lanes need to be established to create a safer environment for those using human-powered means of transportation. “Everyone should be able to bike and walk for their personal health and for the health of the planet and our world,” she said.
As those bike lanes — or even decent shoulders — have yet to be constructed, O’Shea decided to host the group rides at River-to-Ridge. “It’s a beautiful trail and it’s accessible and easy to get to,” she said. “I want people with varying levels of cycling abilities to be able to ride with us.” To that end, she will pause at the top of that first steep hill so that everyone can enjoy the view and catch up to one another before she leads a few minutes of meditation.
“The Love Your Brain organization offers free meditation and yoga for people who have traumatic brain injuries,” O’Shea explained. She said that she went to one of the retreats that the group offers and found the organization to be so helpful and supportive for people who have TBIs. “One simple thing was when I was at the retreat and I asked someone where I could get a glass of water,” she said. “A woman said that she’d get it for me. That might sound like nothing to most people, but for me, if I had to stop what I was doing and get that glass of water, it would mean that I’d have to remember where I was sitting, who I was talking to, what we were talking about. Love Our Brains understands this and are so supportive and provide things like retreats and yoga and meditation that are so essential for brain health and overall health.”
Because of her love of and pride in this organization, O’Shea was enthusiastic about the idea of hosting a local Love Your Brain Ride for Resilience. “Bike-riding is so much fun to do with other people. I also think that community is so important, and you feel that when your life has changed in a dramatic way. I felt embarrassed at first, especially those first few months of recovery. I needed my community and I needed connection because I had lost a lot.”
That said, O’Shea added that “Many of the things I’ve hoped for and worked towards are coming back.” She is the epitome of what it means to be resilient. Her recovery is a result of her hard work mentally, physically and spiritually every day, and of not giving up.
Come out and celebrate life and movement at the River-to-Ridge Trail on Saturdays in May at 11 a.m. and stay connected to community while doing something life-affirming and healthy. O’Shea encourages everyone to participate, regardless of their cycling ability. “This is a fun, slow ride, together with some meditation,” she said. “It’s completely free and open to everyone. My Rides for Resilience will be every Saturday (Sunday as rain date) at 11 a.m., meeting at the River-to-Ridge parking lot: 41 Springtown Road, New Paltz.”
To learn more about the Love Your Brain organization, visit www.loveyourbrain.com/ride-for-resilience.
Join the family! 
