by Karen Karvonen

Some 30 years ago, Hal Honeyman opened a store to sell bikes. But he ended up peddling a more precious commodity—independence—by adapting bicycles for disabled kids who couldn’t otherwise enjoy them.

“Riding a bike is such an important rite of passage for many children,” says Honeyman, 50, who owns and operates the Bike Rack in St. Charles, Ill. (pop. 27,876).

Honeyman’s son, Jacob, was born with cerebral palsy and cannot walk. But when Jacob was 3, Honeyman realized his son nonetheless could ride a specially adapted bike—with an upright seat and harness to hold a rider and pedal straps to keep feet in place. He bought the special bike, modified it to fit Jacob’s proportions, and his son has been loving life on wheels ever since.

“Now Jacob rides around the neighborhood like other kids,” says Honeyman, who expanded his shop in 1997 to sell specialty bikes for disabled riders, customizing them for his customers’ unique needs. He estimates that his modified-bicycle business, Creative Mobility, has helped more than 3,000 children and adults to find mobility outside a wheelchair over the last decade.

In 2004, Honeyman started his nonprofit Project Mobility, which sponsors bike-fitting clinics and workshops nationwide. He’s assisted by employee Rick Leipold, who has a spinal cord injury and rides a hand-cycled recumbent bike. For those who can’t afford $2,000 to $4,500 for an adaptive bike, Project Mobility matches them with potential funding sources.

Project Mobility also supports dozens of adaptive cycling activities at hospitals, schools, parks and camps. Every August, Honeyman’s team assists kids from a local Shriners Hospital who spend a weekend cycling 30 miles a day along the Illinois River. Once or twice each week, Honeyman hauls adaptive bikes to an event, such as the annual Easter Seals picnic in Villa Park, Ill.

“He opens up a whole new world for kids who’ve never biked before and gives them joy and a real sense of pride,” says Ellie Cummings, a spokeswoman for Easter Seals.

Five years ago, Honeyman’s bikes caught the eye of Philip and Christeen Chase, of Kansas City, Mo., who were touring Chicago’s Abilities Expo with their son Benjamin, then 10 years old, who has cerebral palsy.

“We never thought Ben could ride a bike, but as soon as Hal strapped him in, he took off,” Philip says. “We were amazed.” Benjamin is now on his second adapted bike.

Honeyman enjoys the challenge of fitting a cycle to a specific rider’s needs. He developed joystick controls and up to 128 gear combinations for quadriplegics. For a right-hand amputee, he modifies the shifting and braking controls on a regular road bike and adds a quick-release device to click a prosthetic hand into the handlebar.

Recently, Honeyman adapted a tandem bike with hand supports, a four-point harness and shorter pedals to fit Jacob, now 14. “My wife or I ride upright in the back and Jacob’s in a recumbent position up front,” Honeyman says. “With this bike, we can take longer trips and go much faster, which Jacob really enjoys.”

Although about 75 percent of the bikes he fits are for children, Honeyman also works with adults. In 2006, Project Mobility adapted bikes for 40 amputees from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., who were riding 3,000 miles cross-country to raise money for wounded military-service members.

In 2004, the American Red Cross chapter in St. Charles honored Honeyman as a hometown hero, but Honeyman says his heroes are the kids he helps. v “A lot of them have had a dozen surgeries and every uphill battle you can think of. But they have such a tremendously positive outlook,” he says. “It teaches me a lot, and I draw my strength from them.”

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.

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The captain, the person that sets direction, relies upon the stoker, the person who acts as the engine, to provide propulsion. Should either the captain or the stoker find annoyance with the other rider, the outing will almost certainly end in misery. Conversely, a pair in harmony will have a ride to remember (though it can be said that miserable rides are also quite memorable).

What do two people do when a ride devolves into misery? They ride separate bikes. They get their distance. They ride four lengths apart from each other.

But what if they didn’t have that choice? What if one of the riders was absolutely dependent on the other for all riding, tandem or not? That is the case for a rider we’ll call “Tim”.

Tim was a college graduate before deciding to enlist in the military following graduation. His enlistment eventually led to his deployment as part of the latter Iraq war. During a confrontation, shrapnel from incoming mortar fire ripped through Tim’s eye severing his optic nerve and causing significant brain trauma. As a result, Tim is now completely blind.

And Tim wants to ride a bike.

As he has no other physical limitations, it is entirely possible for Tim to ride an upright tandem bicycle. In fact, he has done so on a number of occasions having clocked a 35 mile ride at one point. There is, unfortunately, an inherent danger in doing so. Due to the delicate nature of the cranial reconstruction he received following the shrapnel damage, Tim is unlikely to fully recover should he fall from the height of an upright bike and sustain a head injury.

After a good deal of research, Tim and his family determined that a recumbent tandem trike would be the best overall fit to get him back to pedaling. It allows Tim to contribute power while the captain guides the ride. It is also built very low to the ground and on a much more stable three wheels to sharply reduce the possibility of dangerous falls.

With a rider as capable as Tim, this would perhaps mark the end of the story, but there is a unique facet here: multiple captains. Tim will always be the stoker due to his visual impairment. There are no issues with that since the seat and stoker crank will never require adjustment. Tim is the only person who will stoke his trike. However, there are no fewer than three potential captains: Tim’s father, mother, and girlfriend.

For those not familiar with typical recumbent configurations, recumbents are tuned to their riders. On an upright bike, differing rider leg lengths are accommodated through a simple adjustment of seat height. For proper fit, there is also handle adjustment, but most riders need only to adjust the seat up or down to reach the pedals properly. Recumbent bikes normally feature a fixed seat – it does not move back or forth,up or down. The adjustments for leg length (referred to as external seam or x-seam) all happen through movement of the pedals closer to the rider or farther away. Moving the pedals means changing the chain length, a painful process. This is why people trying out a recumbent for the first time often feel that the bike doesn’t fit them well – it doesn’t.

Three captains means three different x-seams. The trike needs to be able to quickly adjust for each captain and not require the dirty process of removing or inserting quicklinks to change chain length. Fortunately, Tim and his family decided on a Greenspeed tandem trike. Greenspeed is known both for their build quality and their customer service. When asked how multiple captains could be accommodated, the answer from Greenspeed was quick: chain tensioner. Greenspeed suggested installing a chain tensioner much like the one they sell with their Anura delta trike. This device automatically releases slack and takes it up when the front boom is adjusted, allowing for a flexible range of x-seams.

Had Greenspeed not offered this solution, Tim would be limited to a single captain and would have his riding limited by the availability of that lone sighted partner. Once constructed, Tim’s trike will be open to nearly anyone who wants to take the front grips.

The measurements are taken. The colors are chosen. The options are selected. Now the wait begins for Tim and his many captains as his trike is being built.