Vision-impaired biker leads the way on the trails

Before they were called "extreme," Tommy Kinkle embraced the sports with wipeouts that made people cringe.

As a sponsored local skateboarder and BMX rider growing up, he was more likely to get scraped up sliding on the asphalt than the baseball diamond or tweak his ankle in a drained swimming pool rather than on a basketball court.

"I was always into off-the-wall stuff as a kid," Kinkle said. "I played baseball one year, and that just wasn't for me."

Decades later, Kinkle's mentality is the same, though his life, in many ways, is very different.

Complications from type 1 diabetes compounded with a work injury and glaucoma have left the 43-year-old legally blind with 5 percent vision in only his right eye.

He no longer works a job, and he can't drive. Still, with his remaining vision, Kinkle stays true to his adventurous spirit, mountain biking weekly at the trails at Wildwood Park in Florence.

"I do everything they tell me I can't do," said Kinkle, who also continues to skateboard. "Like when I picked up a skateboard again, 'Oh, you can't do that.' Well, yeah, I can, but not as good as I used to."

Working as a tool maker in 1993, an accident tore the retina and ruptured blood vessels in his left eye. At one point, he lost his sight completely for seven months, but some vision was restored after surgery.

He and his wife switched roles, as Kinkle became a stay-at-home dad. But at the age of 27, he wasn't about to let go of his former life, and two years later he tried mountain biking.

"I thought I was too young to not do anything else," Kinkle said. "Some of my friends were into biking, my wife had a mountain bike and I decided to go along one day. I'm not going to lie, it was almost a joke. It was almost guaranteed that if I came down to ride with the guys down here, I was going to crash. After a while, I kind of got the feel of it and got to know where my limits are."

In the shade of the forest canopy, nightfall comes early for Kinkle. Because of glaucoma, his peripheral vision is diminished as he zips down twisted tree-lined trails. He said he can't see much but what is directly in front of him, and still not clearly.

Having grown up nearby, though, Kinkle is intimately familiar with the trails that traverse the sloped, wooded landscape on the north side of Waterloo Road near Wildwood Park.

"We played in these woods as a kid, and I've been on these trails so many times now, I could almost come through here with my eyes closed," he said. "Where I get messed up is if a tree falls or something is out of place. That's why it's good to go with a group."

Often he rides behind friends Scott Sloan and Richard Topete, using them as guides, whether at Wildwood or at Bankhead National Forest.

Sloan is cautious when riding with Kinkle, who he said can surprise on the trails.

"He can't get in big gears and hammer it hard because he can't see what's coming at him as fast as we can," Sloan said. "But sometimes he'll fool you. If he could see, he's either really good or he would have never thought to go over that.

"Sometimes you ride so fast that your tires are breaking loose and you're sliding. I've been behind him sliding like that trying to keep up with him."

Kinkle's dedication has made him an inspirational figure to his fellow riders.

"He just pretty much maintained his normal lifestyle and what he did with the exception that he couldn't drive anymore," Sloan said. "If you didn't know it about him, you wouldn't know it."

For Kinkle, mountain biking has meant more than any reputation or reminiscence it may bring him.

"This is like a godsend for my health," Kinkle said. "My eyesight is gone, but my heart and everything else is like a teenager, my doctor said. I credit it to biking. I credit it to adding years to my life."

Bryan App can be reached at 740-5730 or bryan.app@timesdaily.com.