People of Pantex: Bryce Garrett
Bryce Garrett rolls through life on his unicycle.
Bryce Garrett didn’t choose the unicycle — the unicycle chose him.
While rummaging through the attic as bored teenagers, he and a friend stumbled upon his parents’ old unicycles and decided to ride their way out of boredom. Garrett practiced riding the unicycle next to a handrail and eventually graduated to riding unassisted at home. Not one for standing around and chatting at parties, he would ride now and again for audiences. After a few years, though, the unicycle was forgotten.
Fast forward to 2012, when Garrett was hit by a car while riding his motorcycle. The crash dislocated his left hip, left his calves paralyzed, and severed two of the three nerves in his neck that control his left arm. After a trip to the Mayo Clinic, doctors reattached the nerves, allowing him control of his arm again from his pinky to his bicep.
“My accident makes me appreciate coming to work,” Garrett said. “I know that sounds crazy, because when Monday morning rolls around, nobody really wants to go to work, myself included. Then I was at the Mayo Clinic and that was all I wanted. I wanted to be able to go back to work and do my job, because at that time, I couldn't.”
Despite the pain of recovery, Garrett knew that he had to get active for his physical and mental health, because both were slipping away from him. He tried running, but that was a no-go. Then one day his nephew mentioned the unicycle, and he decided to give it a shot. Once again, the unicycle chose him.
Turns out unicycling is like … well … riding a bike. Your body doesn’t forget how to do it. What Garrett wasn’t expecting was how difficult it would be to build up endurance. When he realized that unicycling was an option for him, it started a snowball effect. He decided one day that he wanted to ride the Lighthouse Trail at Palo Duro Canyon in Canyon, Texas. Once he realized he was capable of that, he set his sights on racing. He has since participated in several races, each of them special to him for different reasons, like 24 Hours in the Canyon, a bike race benefitting cancer survivors. Garrett is a record holder in this race for the fastest time on a unicycle. This past year, he rode 102 miles in a 24-hour period.
“These cancer survivors wake up every day and fight that fight,” Garret said. “Normally it’s meditative to ride … but during the 24 Hours event, I think a lot about them. It really fires me up to turn something that was very painful for me into something that can help somebody in a different situation. It's hard. It's difficult. And I push myself as hard as I can. But it's because I want to honor those people fighting cancer.”
Garrett started at Pantex in Infrastructure in 2018 as a mechanic and was recently promoted to a supervisor position. Riding a unicycle is not only a stress relief, but it has taught him the lesson of patience — and how to get back on the seat when things get tough. Those are the same lessons he tries to teach his daughters.
“I brought a cycle home and my wife laughed about it, but my daughters claimed it and I didn't argue,” he said. “So, now they have a unicycle.”
Three generations of Garretts have now kicked “the training wheel” for a singular hobby. Garrett picked up his parents’ unique unicycling, and as he tries to provide “a magical childhood” to his own kids, they have found a connection that most people wouldn’t dream of trying. Though fun might be the key motivator for starting to unicycle, it means much, much more to Garrett.
“It's kind of immeasurable how much it helped, really.” Garrett said. “Looking back, I was dealing with not being able to physically do some things I used to do. It made me realize that … I still have a lot of joy in life, and riding helped me gain my confidence back.”
Watch how Bryce chooses a hands-free approach to dealing with life's punches here: