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In 2022, Allie Bianchi, a 23-year-old outdoor enthusiast and special educator from Richmond, broke her neck while mountain biking. She is now paralyzed below her chest.
In 2025, Bianchi was rolling again, this time on a specially adapted mountain bike. Now, she is the star of a new film.
“Best Day Ever” follows the story of several adaptive mountain bikers — including Bianchi, Greg Durso and Ryan Manning — as they rediscover a sport they love. Central to their return to biking is the story of the world’s first adaptive mountain bike trail network, which was built with the help of volunteers from Richmond Mountain Trails. The Driving Range opened in Bolton in 2024.
Last week, the Vermont Land Trust signed an agreement with the DesLauriers family, the owners of Bolton Valley resort, to conserve the land where the Driving Range is located. Richmond Mountain Trails and the Catamount Trail Association will hold recreation easements.
Berne Broudy, a veteran Vermont outdoor journalist who is also president of Richmond Mountain Trails, produced and co-directed “Best Day Ever” with filmmaker Ben Knight. The 48-minute film has been winning awards at film festivals internationally since its release last fall.
The film and the trail project it chronicles show how a community can not only open the outdoors to people with disabilities. It can change culture.
Broudy recalled that when a group of local teenagers came to help build the trails, they didn’t know how to interact with people with disabilities. “Within one trail night of digging together, riding bikes together, eating hot dogs together, hanging out together, that dynamic totally changed,” Broudy said.
“It’s not so much about the trail as it is about changing the mindset to include everyone and being inclusive and allowing for these small changes that make huge differences in other people’s lives,” said Manning, who works as an account manager at Burton Snowboards and has quadriplegia.
Bianchi has seen how her participation in adaptive sports has changed attitudes. “When you spend time with someone with a disability, you learn that there is no difference,” she said. “It’s just normalized. And I think we need more of that in this world.”
One of the film’s most powerful moments features Bianchi returning to the scene of her accident. She is riding an adaptive mountain bike and accompanied by the two friends she was with when she was injured. Returning to ride the trail again was a milestone for her.
“You’re continuing to conquer and do even greater and better things,” she reflected. “It hasn’t really stopped you. And I think that is really cool.”
