Volunteering at the No Barriers festival at Shake-a-Leg, I realized that there really are no limits to what we are all are capable of. When your heart is in it, and your spirit is strong, you can make anything happen!
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Last year I worked as a mechanic in a Washington, D.C. bike shop. One day my boss gave me an interesting project to work on; he wanted me to build a tricycle for an 8-year-old differently-abled autistic boy.
The boy had no hands, only wrists. He also had no muscle control over his feet; he had ankles that would need to be tightly strapped to the pedals. The boy could not sit up straight. He would need to lean back on something in order to ride.
With these considerations in mind, I cranked up the Primus tunes and got to work.
The whole process of reworking a red recumbent tricycle into a machine for this special child was somewhat complicated. In the end I found myself pedaling up 8th Street with my wrists attached to the handlebars and my boss—his name was Boot—standing on the back of the trike frame holding a lever for the rear disc brake, yelling “Mush! Mush!” as bystanders stared on in horror.
Despite the public shame of carrying (loud and embarrassing) Boot through the city streets on the back of a red tricycle, it felt really great to give a child a chance to ride. Boot later told me cool stories about his rides with the 8-year-old boy, who totally fell in love with the sport.
Yes, differently-abled folks can ride, too. And they can rock the sport like...woah.
Handcycling is a very popular adaptation to traditional bicycling, designed for people with partial or no use of their legs. The sport appeared in the 80s (along with other super cool sports such as rollerblading and Tetris) and at first was not intended for those with physical disabilities. But of course the idea of pedaling with the upper body appealed to legless folks. Today the sport is enjoyed internationally, with races gaining in popularity. Different models have been specially designed to accommodate for varying physical disabilities, which makes the sport widely accessible.
Although bike companies have not yet produced a model for 8-year-old boys with no hands and no feet, I’m sure that it will appear in the next few years. And when it does, perhaps I can take a trip back to DC to test it out with Boot.
