Not all roads are created equal. Just ask Ben Spencer and Peter Smorthit.
This July, the two became the first to cross the Alps by wheelchair.
Over 18 days, through searing heat and brutal gradients, the pair pushed themselves 422 kilometres – the equivalent of 10 marathons – from Montreux, on the shores of Switzerland’s Lake Geneva, to Lake Como in Italy.
It didn’t come easy.
Days into the journey, the two faced a steep climb up a gorge. With no accessible path forward, Smorthit – a 33-year-old paraplegic – got out of his chair and dragged himself and his wheelchair more than a kilometre uphill as Spencer followed, moving only a few metres at a time. It took two hours.
“That was just an amazing feat of endurance,” says Spencer over a phone call from a roadside station in France, where the two had stopped on the way back to the UK.
Spencer is adamant that physical pain was a small price to pay for the bigger goal.
The two set off on this Alpine adventure to raise awareness and funds for ataxia, a rare neurological disorder that afflicts 12,500 people in the UK alone – including Spencer.
Ataxia is a cause worth climbing for
There are several forms of ataxia. All of them affect speech, balance, coordination, hearing and bladder control in various ways.
Ataxia is usually progressive, and there is no universal cure.
Since 2022, Spencer has lived with cerebellar ataxia, a form of the disease caused by damage to the cerebellum. As it has progressed, ataxia has relegated him almost exclusively to a wheelchair. He has issues with his bladder and gets fatigued easily, something that hinders his ability to speak. But you wouldn’t know this from his bio.
He and Smorthit stay more active than most of the global population. They play wheelchair rugby and have collectively completed hundreds of half marathons and marathons – plus some ultra marathons. They have traversed the Applecross Pass, or Bealach na Bà, one of the UK’s most challenging roads, known for its 20 per cent gradients and hairpin turns.
Smorthit once solo-travelled the 1,407 kilometres from Land’s End to John o’ Groats in Scotland, all while pulling a trailer behind a standard wheelchair.
In 2024 and 2025, the two also participated in the London Marathon. Both times, Spencer raised funds for Ataxia UK, a British charity that funds research into finding treatments and cures, while offering advice, information and support to people affected by the condition.
Their journey across Europe’s highest mountains this summer – Alps 4 Ataxia – also raised money for the charity.
Remarkably, all these achievements have occurred since Spencer was diagnosed, the moment he went from being “your overworked career guy” to a vocal – and visible – advocate for people living with ataxia. And people with disabilities in general.
In 2023, Spencer travelled all 272 London tube stations to raise awareness about his condition, as well as accessibility in the city’s most used public transport system.
“Only 93 of them are accessible,” he says.
“A lot of people will start getting upset for us [because] we can’t access something, so we’ll just throw ourselves out of our chairs, bump ourselves up on stairs and pull the wheelchairs behind us,” he adds.
“That’s the moment that able-bodied people get shocked about how inaccessible the world can be.”
What it really takes to cross the Alps in a wheelchair
This adventure tested them like none before.
The Alps presented not just steep climbs, but also blistering temperatures of nearly 40°C and moments of real danger, all against a backdrop of breathtaking landscapes.
“Peter is pretty much an endurance athlete, but with me and my ataxia, we really had to work out a pattern of how I could do it and recover,” Spencer says of managing the distance, the gruelling climbs over 2,000-metre passes and the heat all at once.
Before they left the UK, they had mapped a route using EuroVelo cycling paths and quiet roads through Switzerland and the Rhône Valley. A support crew of three, including two others with ataxia, helped with logistics. Originally planned as a 10- to 12-day journey, the trip stretched to 18 as the heat took its toll.
“Both Peter and I have trouble regulating our body temperature,” Spencer explains.
“Peter has a spinal cord injury and can go into [a potentially life-threatening condition] called AD [autonomic dysreflexia], where all of a sudden, he can pass out from the heat. One time, there was a close call. I ended up having to chuck a load of water over him.”
Despite the heat, the physical and mental lows were outweighed by the highs. Sometimes literal ones.
“Reaching the top of the first pass [in Switzerland] cemented the fact that we could do it,” Spencer says.
He also cherished conversations with passersby, using each as a chance to raise awareness about ataxia and challenge assumptions about disability.
“I really wanted people to understand that disabled people can achieve extreme things” – even those as extreme as crossing high mountain passes.
A wake-up call for accessibility advocates
The experience exposed gaps in accessibility, too.
“This trip has helped highlight that there’s more work to do to make the world accessible,” he says. Campsites listed as accessible lacked proper facilities, and some cycling routes included long gravel sections and nearly impassable obstacles.
“For wheelchair users to take part in outdoor sports, especially when it comes to going through rugged terrain or the countryside, there’s so much more that can be done.”
And for people living with disabilities like ataxia, travelling the Alps has provided a greater lesson.
“No matter what disability or condition you have,” Spencer says, “just never give up.”
