RBR has recently constructed a Catrike Road for a 12 year old who has had both legs below the knee and his right hand amputated.

The goal of the build was to provide this individual a means of cycling that enabled his use of a trike while downplaying the obviousness of his handicap.

Using prosthetics, the rider will be able to strap into clipped pedals. This will be a step up from the method used with his last bike: duct taping himself to the pedals. He specifically requested that calf supports not be used as they gave away his disability from a distance.

The primary challenge for this build was adapting what is normally the right hand grip of the Catrike Road. Rob Gentry of RBR hit upon some inspiration from a spare carbon fiber bottle cage he had in the shop. Removing the grip entirely, he mounted the bottle cage to the steering arm of the Catrike, lined it with padded material, and added a velcro enclosure to allow the rider to adjust tension as necessary. This provides a secure resting area for the rider’s right limb.

Removing that grip of course meant that the right brake lever had to be relocated. To address this, the left brake lever was made to control both left and right disc brakes simultaneously. On typical tadpole trikes, brakes are present only on the front wheels. For this build, a third coaster brake was added to the rear tire so the rider could engage the brakes with his feet. In this case, the rear brake serves as a backup should the front brakes fail or not be enough stopping power.

This particular rider also has some limitations in his left hand as he has lost several digits. There is enough strength to control steering and a remaining digit for braking but not enough to engage a grip shifter. To address this, RBR mounted a plastic protrusion to the grip shift so that it could be pushed forward and pulled back to go through the range of gears on the Sram Spectro P5 five speed hub.