Ben Tudhope
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Tearing along on a tandem bicycle on a wooden track slanted at 44 degrees at a speed over 70 kilometres an hour must be terrifying. Now imagine doing so if you were legally blind.
Welcome to the world of Kane Perris and his sighted guide Luke Zaccaria.
Perris was born with albinism and associated vision loss. He was at a low ebb in his life when he met Zaccaria at a talent search day in 2020. It was a meeting that would change the course of both their lives.
“I really needed something in life that could be the vessel for growth and I never knew that it would be riding bikes in circles at 75kph,” Perris said.
“But this guy came along and the opportunity came up and I’ve never looked back.”
Few sports require as much trust between teammates as tandem cycling. Perris’s mental strength is what initially attracted Zaccaria to start working with Perris.
“It’s something that’s not really trainable,” Zaccaria said. “That’s an inherent quality within him and that really stood out.”
As a vision impaired person, riding on the back of a tandem bike at 75+ kph is an incredible thrill.
Four years later, the pair were in the starting gate at the Paris 2024 Paralympics. In between they’d had a terrible fall at the 2024 World Championships, which left Perris with a fractured shoulder, three broken ribs and a punctured lung.
Despite that major bump on the road, the pair finished fourth by just over a second in the men’s time trial B. At the 2025 World Championships – on the same track where they’d had their fall the previous year – the dynamic duo won gold in the mixed team sprint B and silver in the tandem B kilo and tandem B sprint. They then won bronze in the tandem B kilo at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
“As a vision impaired person, riding on the back of a tandem bike at 75+ kph is an incredible thrill,” Perris said.
“Growing up I wasn’t allowed to ride a bike for safety concerns. Tandem cycling has given me an opportunity to compete in an event that otherwise wouldn’t be possible.
“I hope my story empowers people with disabilities to be the CEO of their own journey. To take charge and lean into challenging moments.”
