Saboo Takaki Was Paralyzed in a Bike Crash and Told He’d Never Walk Again. This Is His Inspiring Journey Back to Cycling.

Twenty-one years ago, Saboo Takaki crashed his mountain bike while preparing for a race. As an aspiring semi-pro mountain biker working his way up the ranks, crashing wasn’t an unfamiliar experience for him.

But immediately he knew this one was different.

“I couldn’t turn,” he recalled recently while sitting on his front porch in San Francisco. “This huge confusion shot into my head. I was in panic mode. I quickly realized this crash was bigger than any I’d ever had. People were surrounding me and an EMT was trying to secure me.”

He was helicoptered to the hospital, in the greatest pain of his life, and could already sense that the outlook was grim. After he underwent surgery, doctors delivered some sobering news. He had suffered a compound fracture to six vertebrae and his spine was now fused together with rods. He was diagnosed with incomplete paraplegia and given a single-digit percentage chance of being able to walk again.

“You won’t be able to walk again and you need to adapt to a new life,” he remembers his doctor saying. His mental state and self esteem plummeted to the deepest, darkest place of his life.

“It was like a death sentence to me,” he said. “I think initially I gave up on my life as I was no longer in control of my body, or my future for that matter.”

But still, there was a chance or regaining mobility, and he soon found motivation for a path forward.

From Japan to San Francisco

Saboo became a cyclist the day his parents took the training wheels off his bike and he coasted down a slope. From there, his is a familiar story of finding freedom on the bike, pushing first to the edge of his village in the countryside of northern Japan, and then finding new boundaries outside of his comfort zone.

“I really started loving everything about cycling and appreciating the simple joy I can get from riding a bicycle,” he said.

He began training on the road with his school’s ski team, who cross-trained on bikes in the summer months. He also tried his hand at track racing, training vigorously for it. But it would be the sport’s newest discipline that really grabbed his attention.

Seeing pictures of John Tomac racing mountain bikes in the early ‘90s and skidding through corners ignited a passion for the sport. “I thought mountain biking was the coolest thing in the world”!

It helped that off-roading better suited his style of riding, not to mention it was more fun.

Around this time, Saboo’s horizons were expanding in other ways. As a teenager, he had the opportunity to live in Australia, a formative experience.

“Metaphorically, we were taught to stay within the boundaries and follow the established path,” he said of growing up in Japan. Having now experienced a taste of a foreign culture, he was looking to break free from the conservative monoculture of his upbringing.

“I begged my parents to send me to the US after high school,” he said. In 1996, he moved to San Francisco, without knowing its proximity to Marin, the birthplace of mountain biking. It didn’t take long for him to figure it out, and he couldn’t help but get sucked into the sport further.

“This city is a perfect playground with many steep hills, across the bridge from the Marin Headlands and scenic views from many of the vistas in the different neighborhoods. I fell in love with it and never left.”

He met a community of likeminded bikers, all enjoying the region’s ample trails, with more accessible by car in Santa Cruz and Tahoe. By the late ‘90s, he was gravitating toward the burgeoning discipline’s more extreme side.

“I loved riding fast through the corners, technical sections and really loved the feeling of competing and winning the races,” he said. “I gradually moved up the levels and started riding a full suspension bike and started racing in national level races all over the US as an amateur racer.”

In 2003, following many victories and podiums at the amateur level, Saboo was looking to take the next step and jump from amateur to semi-pro.

But a desire to reach the sport’s next level propelled him to push harder and harder, even in terrain where he was less comfortable.

“I started to develop an ego,” he said. “I thought I was really fast and incredibly talented.”

His talents soon brushed up against reality.

May 17, 2003 would be his last ever race. On his final practice run of a course in Big Bear, California, one that featured big jumps and less of the flowy, technical riding where he excelled, he pushed himself too far outside of his limits.

Learning to walk again, one small step at a time

Earlier this year, I joined Saboo for a ride from his home in San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County. It’s a ride that would have been unimaginable for him 21 years ago, facing down the news of likely never walking again. Frankly, it would have been surprising news even a few years ago. Getting to where he is now has been a long journey physically, mentally, and emotionally.

In the days and weeks after his accident, Saboo was at his lowest. He was faced with a sudden loss of independence, and was burdened with crushing medical debt in the high six figures, his bills looking “as thick as a dictionary.”

Friends and family unconditionally supported Saboo through this traumatic time, but even still, processing this new reality was an emotional roller coaster. “I was devastated,” he said. “I can’t walk, I don’t know how to pay for the medical bills or what will happen to my future. I wanted to surrender and let it consume me.”

About two weeks after the accident, Saboo received a glimmer of hope: his right toe moved. Not long after, more good news: he learned that the race organizer of the event he crashed in would pick up his medical bill.

Now, relieved of one burden and imbued with hope, standing up and walking were the only goals he could think of.

“I remember sharing my goal with other patients in my peer group, that I’ll stand up and walk out of this hospital. The host of the group quickly mentioned ‘That’s very ambitious but let’s aim for a more realistic one.’ I wheeled myself out of the room like I didn’t belong there.”

For the first two years after the accident, Saboo remained in a wheelchair, slowly pushing his limits. “I started to wheel myself a bit further each time and explore my boundaries,” he said. “I think this became my ethos just like how I felt when I started cycling when I was a child.”

He had to relearn how to do just about everything in that time. Things that able bodied people take for granted like putting on a sock became a Herculean task.

“When you’re paralyzed, moving your own feet is as impossible as moving a bottle of water on a table only by using your mind like telekinesis, it was that disconnected from my brain.”

Luckily, with the help of his physical therapy team, Saboo was regaining movement in his legs bit by bit. They would gear up his body in crutches and braces, allowing him to practice standing and balancing, essentially from the same starting point as a baby.

The limitations of a wheelchair against steep slopes or curbs provided extra motivation to keep progressing. It has been a slow, incremental journey, marked by distinct milestones, like crossing a busy street on his own.

“I was ecstatic and so stoked on life,” he recalled of that moment. “Who’d have thought such a simple thing can bring so much joy and satisfaction”?

But arriving at that point took getting over worrying about what others think of his limited mobility and altered gait.

“I told myself, it doesn’t matter what and how others think of me, my happiness is ultimately what matters most. From then, I made incremental and realistic goals so anytime I couldn’t make it, I still felt it was achievable if I worked for it continuously. It became a motto I live by to this day.”

Getting back on the bike

After the wheelchair, Saboo’s next step was an e-scooter. It allowed him greater mobility, in what was still a simple life. He would ride to a nearby grocery store and then a pool to swim.

“It wasn’t perfect but a lot more than I originally envisioned back when I was in the ICU,” he said.

Eventually, he regained enough strength in his legs to return to a pedal bicycle, though in a limited capacity. He was nervous at first, but gained more confidence over time.

“Returning to riding a bicycle to live independently and continuously expanded my horizons.”

Still, he was bumping up against physical limitations. He could travel about 5 miles under his own power, just enough range for commuting, but not much else.

Then the Covid-19 pandemic struck and shut down his pool, one of his main sources of exercise. He needed to find something else. Around this time, e-gravel and e-road bikes were just coming into their own as a category. After realizing he would push himself too much on an e-mountain bike — wisdom gained with age — he bought a Specialized Turbo Creo e-gravel bike, providing him the ability to quickly get out to trails and still ride off-road.

His 5-mile range has become a 50-mile range. Now, he is able to push beyond the Golden Gate Bridge and enter Marin, where he fell in love with cycling and mountain biking nearly 30 years ago.

“I am very happy to casually ride across the Golden Gate bridge and see the magnificent views of San Francisco. It doesn’t have to be monumental. The fact is, I’m proud of how far I’ve come along.”

Even still, he is hitting major milestones, once more climbing Mount Tam, a classic Bay Area climb famed for being the birthplace of mountain biking.

When you see him on the bike, you don’t realize that he has limited walking ability. His descending skills are as sharp as ever, too. The moment we hit a slightly technical gravel descent he was out of my sight.

He has made some modifications to his bike with independence and safety in mind given his still-limited walking ability. A dropper post helps him mount the bike from the rear because he can’t swing a leg over the saddle. Tire inserts allow him to keep riding in an emergency or with a flat. And a short-travel gravel fork adds some extra comfort.

Sharing his story to inspire others

Looking back, Saboo’s optimism for his ability to recover may have been born more from stubbornness or denial. “I don’t think I ever accepted my new life. Or maybe I tried my best to ignore it,” he said.

“For a long time, I stayed away from interacting with other paralyzed people. I was in denial and even after I regained enough mobility, secretly I was insecure about my disability.”

That has begun to change in recent years, however, as social media has helped expose Saboo to more paralyzed people.

“I slowly started learning about athletes who had spinal cord injury like Tara Llanes, Brook Macdonald, and Paul Basagoitia to name a few. Some have fully regained mobility and are still racing and others have adapted to new sports and are still thriving.”

With time, and exposure to other athletes, Saboo is opening up about his journey and his struggles.

“I must admit, I’m still new to sharing my story and overcoming insecurities to open up about my disability publicly,” he said. But he’s finding more reason to do just that.

“I believe that my journey can serve as an inspiration for many individuals, regardless of their circumstances, by showcasing human bond via cycling, a path to rediscovering independence, rebuilding community connections, and exploring new horizons with a sense of joy and freedom.”

Now, he’s figuring out the best way to make an impact on his own. But in the meantime, you can find him riding in the Bay Area, taking in the simple joy of riding a bike.