By John Robinson Days 9 and 10 – #JourneytoWork
Wednesday started out in picturesque Little Falls. It is beautiful in Little Falls when you leave the village along the path. You are rolling in between two rock formations for at least a mile. It is a very cool and soothing area to cycle through.
It was a bittersweet day on Wednesday. We had beautiful weather and wonderful friends with us, but it’s the first day since year one that Doug could not ride. I found myself respecting how much I enjoy and rely upon having a friend, colleague and hand cyclist to share our Journey. He was under the weather, and I understand how much he missed the opportunity to bike on Wednesday. We also had two flat tires – both Anthony and Trish had suffered tire malfunctions during the day. Anthony’s was more severe – unable to finish the final 10 miles. Thankfully, Trish had her flat tire with one mile to go and she was able to limp in.
It was a brutally hot day Wednesday. And, we forgot how soft the trail is between Little Falls and Canajoharie. It is indescribable on how hard it is to push my hand cycle through the soft path.
We had many positives. We we crossed the 300 mile mark! We enjoyed great company, listened to Owen’s friend Nate play the guitar and we ended the day with Karen’s Ice Cream just outside of Amsterdam. All in all it was a long, hot and bittersweet 42 miles.
Thursday proved to be an amazing day – with some extra challenges at the end. We had a wonderful event with Liberty ARC. We met many of our friends we’ve seen in years past and celebrated with nearly 200 people seeing us off for the day. We had more riders than at any point to date. Again, we were joined by people from Saratoga Bridges, Schenectady Arc, Liberty Arc as well as our good friend Matt from Helen Hayes Adaptive Sport. We left Amsterdam with the sheriffs escort to the county border. This was wonderful treat by Liberty. Liberty is a great example of employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. NYSID was on hand as well, and it’s great to be able to share our cooperative message of employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. We could not do this Journey to create employment opportunities without the help of NYSID!
We had an equally exciting and important event and Price Chopper/Market32 headquarters at noon. We have found great friends with Price Chopper/Market 32 over the years and will continue to work with them to create employment opportunities for people with disabilities!
As we left this wonderful event, Doug Hamlin lost his break cable again. On the first day in Buffalo he had a similar repair. We called Freeman’s Bridge Sports who fixed his cable. There are so many wonderful bike shops along the canal, and it does not end with the wonderful bike shops in the capital region!
We now have 18 miles to go to Albany!
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional | 11 months | The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". |
viewed_cookie_policy | 11 months | The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data. |
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to