2023-04-29 18:00:10
BarcelonaA few months ago, on Palamós beach, some onlookers saw a couple of people pedaling over the sand on two bicycles. One was Lester Fernández, a cycling enthusiast born in Cuba who has been living in Catalonia for two decades, and the other was Melcior Mauri, one of the best Catalan cyclists in history. Lester has an 81% physical disability and can hardly walk. He moves around in a wheelchair and when he stands up he needs crutches. But when he gets on a bike, he’s unstoppable.
“We told me that I might not be able to walk anymore. They told me that I would never be able to ride a bike again, but I am very stubborn,” he explains. So stubborn that next week he wants to finish the Skoda Titan Desert, one of the tests of mountain bike harder, in the desert of Morocco. And to prepare he needed to learn the technique to roll on the dunes. So Mauri took him for a ride on the beach. “The first time I didn’t even go 10 meters,” he remembers with a laugh that is self-deprecating. “But Melcior advised me, he told me what pressure the wheels should have, how to improve the technique…”, he adds. The result is that next week they will be teammates on the KH-7 team in the Titan Desert. “It’s clear that he can finish the race, you have to see him on a bike,” Mauri defends. “He is one of the best people I have ever met. An angel on wheels,” praises Fernández.
Melcior Mauri, one of the few Catalans to have won the Vuelta, has known the Titan Desert for years. He’s competed against the best in the world, but he’s never met anyone with Lester’s heart. “I have been related to cycling and bicycles since I was very young. I was a child there in Cuba, one nerd, I studied a lot,” he gets excited remembering his childhood in the center of the island, in the city of Morón. “My family wanted me to be a good student, but they also knew that I needed to do more. So they found me a sport. I had always liked cycling, but I never thought I could race it. And quickly he was already winning races. And look, now it’s my life,” he says.
In 2004, Lester Fernández arrived in Catalonia looking for a new life. He found a new home in Rubí, learned Catalan and found a cycling club to go out and discover new landscapes. But then the health problems started. Despite being young, he suffered two strokes that affected his mobility. “In 2017 I had to stop. I had several operations that caused necrosis in my leg that prevented me from cycling. I started to improve from 2018. I felt good. The necrosis was gone, I to get back on the bike with friends, with family, to get ready,” he explains.
But luck was not on Lester’s side. In 2020, when he was getting back on the bike despite the mobility problems he already had, he was hit by a car. “I was training for a ride that we were doing of 600 kilometers in 24 hours. From there, life got very complicated, the necrosis came out again. The right leg, the right shoulder, the left hand … it was very hard. I’m in a lot of pain, I sleep very little… everything is hard. But it’s harder for me to walk than to ride a bike. And look, they told me I couldn’t do it again, but I’m very stubborn . When I started rehabilitation, I got on my bike at home and pedaled with the fixed roller. It was liberating to see that I could. And then, accompanied by friends, I went out on the road. On the third day I already did 100 kilometers ” he says smiling. “It also helps me to train in the Water Polo Ability team at Club Natació Barcelona with physiotherapist Rafa Nadal, with whom I do robotics exercises at his Healthsystem clinic in Cabrera de Mar,” he adds.
This coming week, therefore, he will try to complete the Titan Desert: 620 kilometers and 7,700 meters of accumulated altitude difference in six stages in the desert of Morocco. “I had been mulling over the idea of the Titan for many years. In fact, the first Titan races were held in Cuba and I dreamed of going back there. I go there with a little fear because, of course, on the bike you are in danger , you can fall. I don’t go out alone, I go out accompanied. It will be a challenge,” he explains. And all, thanks to the Titan Life by KH-7 scholarships, intended for people who have dreams to realize related to sport.
Lester’s big project is an organization called Happy Wheels that aims to help people with disabilities, to encourage them to do sport, cycling. He does this with the help of the Isidre Esteve Foundation, where he was informed of the KH-7 grants for projects like his. And he presented one that would be one of the most voted. This has allowed him to start this partnership and prepare for the Titan Desert.
“The idea of Happy Wheels starts long before the issue of the Titan. It starts with a group of friends who are cyclists. I am the only disabled person in the group and I thought of creating a group with people who have been through problems, to come out with us. So that they can do sport. The idea is that they get out of the house, since many stay locked in, they don’t want to go out,” he explains. “It happened to me. I was sad, I didn’t want to do anything, bored as an oyster, but I also had thoughts that didn’t belong anymore. I was turning things around too much. I was complicating the lives of the people around me. I saw everything black, blacker than me, I swear. I was getting fat, everything was bothering me… and the bike was a salvation again. I’m happy when I can ride a bike,” he says.
“Leaving the house is therapy. Enjoy the landscape, go to the mountains, have dinner one day, lunch, breakfast, whatever you want… but make them feel comfortable. Beyond the importance of doing sports, for to a person who has had an accident, all this is very important psychologically. And if they can’t ride a bicycle, we have tricycles, chairs… But if you see that you can move and do things that you thought you could no longer do, you feel … happyno?”
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