Drinking From The Fire Hose

The Roll Up

Author

Sarah Elliott
March 09, 2026

In partnership with

~3 min read

Well hey there folks,

Just a totally calm, normal Tuesday. Nothing to see here except the usual global chaos, a collective information fire hose, and all of us trying to keep our group chats, blood pressure, and tabs open at vaguely manageable levels while we compartmentalize the sh*t out of it all.

We’re keeping it short, sharp, and yes, dare I say, Punch the Monkey-level punchy – a deeply stupid, baboon-adjacent reference that I could not in good conscience not make. A little less noise, a little more substance, and a little teaser from behind the curtain (to be read in movie announcer voice): while the world watches what disabled athletes can do, we’ve been building something for what comes next. Our app glow up is almost here, and we’re finally getting close enough to start showing off some of the shiny new bits (ooh! Or ew?). March 18 drop 🤞 Keep your peepers peeled.

We’ve been a little quieter overall because we’re busy making something better and because none of us needs one more person yelling into the void unless we’ve got something worth saying.

In the meantime: we’ve got a story below about innovation, grit, and disabled people doing what disabled people have always done – building what is needed when the world doesn’t catch up fast enough.

As always, thanks for being here with us. In a time of great uncertainty, we still go further, together.

~Sarah and the rest of the Roll baboons

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Accessi-stories From Around the World

After losing his leg above the knee in a 2008 snocross crash, Paralympic snowboarder Mike Schultz ran into a problem plenty of disabled people know by heart: the thing he needed either didn’t exist, didn’t work well enough, or wasn’t built for the reality of actually using it. So he did what disabled people have been doing forever; he built something better. 

That DIY solution became BioDapt, the company he founded in 2010, and Schultz told the IPC that around 25 Para athletes at the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympics are expected to compete using equipment he developed. He also said that more than 20 athletes used his gear in Beijing 2022 and BioDapt reportedly supports about 90% of lower-limb athletes in Para Snowboard World Cup competition.

@Steph Chambers/Getty Images

We love a comeback story. We love an elite athlete moment. We love to gasp and point and say, “look what disabled people can do,” as if disabled folks haven’t been MacGyvering our way through inaccessible systems since the dawn of time. But this is bigger than one guy getting back on a board. This is about what happens when disabled people build for disabled people: the bar gets higher, the tech gets better, and suddenly an entire field moves forward.

There’s also something delightfully unhinged – in the best possible way – about creating gear so good that your own competition uses it too. Schultz has described that as a bit of a double-edged sword, which, fair. But it’s also kind of perfect. Even if he doesn’t take the podium (he didn’t in his first event, but has another one coming up!), something he built might. That’s legacy behavior, babe. 💅 

Read more here

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