Bio: Part I

Writer bio time:
Well, some of you know me, and some of you do not.

My foray into the world of disability happened on March 26, 1986. At 13, I was an avid bicycle rider in sunny Southern California. I would ride with my buddy, Bernie Yudin, every weekend up and down the coastal bike paths easily doing 30 miles at a clip. This particular fateful Wednesday, I went out on my own. I rode 20 miles and was coming home to where I lived in Seal Beach. I was looking to get my bike registered, as any teenager did (or was told to do) in the 80s to "thwart" theft. Coming out of the fire station (who said they registered bicycles on Saturdays), I hopped on my bike and headed home. I came out from between two parked cars and WHAMMO! I didn't see the VW Golf and ran right into it. The good thing is, I broke her windshield and sunroof. My body, however, was not so lucky.

I blacked out, thankfully, and came to looking up at the bright blue California sky. My whole body felt like I had cement burn everywhere, since I had broken my neck and had no feeling below my shoulders. Luckily, the accident happened right next to the fire department I didn't have long to wait for an ambulance. I was rushed to Los Alamitos Medical Center which is just up the road from Seal Beach.

I went in for surgery almost right away. The surgeon deftly removed my crushed fifth vertebrae to help reduce the swelling. I didn't sever my spinal cord, which in spinal injury terms means I am a C-5 incomplete quadriplegic. If I had severed my spinal cord, I'd be a complete quadriplegic. After the surgery, the doctors/nurses cleaned me up but there was still blood on the table. When I landed on the ground, I had almost torn off my left ear and they had missed that. So now my left ear is a little closer to my head than my right.

Normally, well in 1986, they would do the surgery in two steps. First, remove the shattered bone(s), then a few days later fuse the neck with excess bone from the pelvis. In my case, however, I spiked a fever shortly after and had some pretty awesome hallucinations. They postponed the surgery multiple times and I eventually had the second surgery on April 26. In the meantime, I had this sweet, fancy
metal headpiece bolted to my skull that could pick up alien transmissions.

I did receive many many get well cards and plastered my hospital room's walls. There was barely any open space left. One of my friends sent me tapes of Bill Cosby and George Carlin. I played those tapes endlessly. I also watched hours and hours of tv. I jumped from Happy Days to I Dream of Jeannie to Bewitched. I also dreamed of getting back onto a bike. I had my parents get me a Nishiki bicycle catalog and I had my bike all picked out. I guess it didn't really sink in that I wasn't walking anytime soon.

Stop back later for more ;)

This one's just like the Reliant Robin...

Not to be exclusive of other options, I stumbled upon this little nugget. It's the FreeWheel attachment that mounts onto your footrest of your wheelchair. I had no idea this thing existed until after I got my Trekinetic K2. I saw an individual using one and thought, "wow, that's kinda neat but, um, yeah no."

It is kind of neat. It's an add-on so, you'd have to have it with you if you had plans to be out in the wild. And you have to attach it, so I'm guessing you'd have to do it when you're not in the chair. So I guess, if you have a chair already and hey, you want to go a little off
the beaten path, this is an option. However, you don't have beefy back wheels and you still have the littler wheels that could get caught on stuff. ...and you're not as stable in the front when turning as Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear demonstrates here.

What's your take on this add-on?


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Part VI - Dynamics

Soon after tooling around in the K2 for a while, I hopped in my old chair to shoot some hoops with one of my boys. It felt so weird. Not having any wheels behind me felt a little disconcerting. Don't get me wrong, I am a whiz at wheelies, but it felt odd.

Another strange feeling was where the wheels were. The wheel placement on the K2 is far forward.
When you push on the wheels, they're basically in front of the weight so in actuality, you're pulling the weight. Plus you get much more purchase on the wheels. On my old chair, while the wheels are more forward than normal (to make it
a more sportier chair), they are almost directly under the weight and being further back you can't get the same effectiveness when pushing. And that's more of what you're doing...you're pushing.

Either they put a lot of thought about the dynamics of pushing/pulling the weight with the way this chair is set up or it was pure accident. To me, it doesn't matter much what they did, because it just works. The chair is comfortable and easy to move.

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Part V: It fits!

It fits!

The wheels pop off (well, not at random), the rear wheel assembly collapses and the foot rest retracts. Easy-peasy. This is how it fits in the boot of my Hyundai Veloster. Boot, for those that may not know, is what the Brits refer to as trunk/back compartment of a car. Since I am putting a British wheelchair in it, I must now refer to it properly.

Not that I was worried if it would fit or not, Mike from Trekinetic was able to give me dimensions of the chair in collapsed form.

Once I got up to camp to see my family, I got the chair out, set the back wheel and popped the big wheels on and off I went. My first journey was mostly downhill. What a joy that was. I didn't have to touch the wheels at all. I just kept my fingers on the brake levers and pulled on them gently to keep my speed slow. While it can handle greater speeds, I didn't want to get road rash on my face, especially on my first trip.

This chair is smooth. It was so comfy. I didn't have to ride anywhere in a wheelie. And NOTHING stood in my way.

I was really happy to have the push handle in back. Some of the hills were too steep to handle, so I get up out of the chair and use the chair as a sort of walker as I get it and myself up the hill (or bat my eyes at some cute passers-by). Yes, I can walk, but as the years have progressed, the legs ain't what they used to be. ...and I have been referred to a few times as the "walking-talking quad" (back when I played wheelchair tennis).

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Part IV - The Waiting and Arrvial

Now it was the waiting time. Summer was approaching and I wasn't going to have the K2 until July 7th. I was curious to see how I'd manage the terrain of Surprise Lake Camp with my old chair.

Well, the time came and it was a little treacherous. I knew I'd have to pop a wheelie while going downhill. It was tough. Plus, the old chair has rubber coating on the push-rims because at the time I got the chair, I had lesser hand strength. Burning the skin off my hands was not fun! I also realized, that due to the rocks on the road, I had to ride most of the time in a wheelie. It was difficult. The K2 couldn't come fast enough! I was able to manage for those few weekends, but I knew I'd have a chair in a few weeks that would open up the roads!

I was excited when my friend Sarah departed for the Emerald Isle. It meant that she was coming home with a special gift! I could hardly contain myself. I was very excited. I left camp early on Sunday afternoon to drive to her house.

Seeing it in the back of her car was awesome! She has an SUV so she was able to have it in back fully assembled. In this photo the wheels are at the narrowest setting. The black (with silver in the middle) axle is how you adjust the angle of the wheels. The way the wheels are here is called the "lean" setting. Twisting the axle changes the wheel angle. I immediately twisted the axle to change the wheels to the "mean" setting before taking the chair out.

Then, it was time to take it out for its inaugural spin! I hopped in, easily adjusted the back angle (there's a little lever in back that you depress), and started pushing myself around. While the wheels have push-rims, it is way easier and more effective to grab the wheels and push. I played around with the brakes which definitely took a little getting used to. The chair spins pretty easily as I realized when I pulled to much on one brake. But wow, what a sweet chair! The back wheel, while it is on a caster stays straight mostly. It has a setting so that when your traveling, it stays "locked" in because most of the time you want to go straight. This also is beneficial when you're zipping down a hill. You don't want a wheel behind you going all akimbo...it could cause you to spill. When you need to turn, however, it pops out of that setting and swivels.

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Part III: All about the chair

So, let me describe to you what was so great about this chair. First off, it has the push wheels in front.

Ok, it has tiny little wheels in front of that, but they rarely touch the ground, and if you were to bump into an obstacle, they retract. Any way...with the big main wheels up front, nothing stands in your way. Well, except maybe walls. It also has independent disc brakes as an option. That tooled lever on the inside of the wheel (just in front of my hand) has a little nub next to my leg (and there's another one on the other side) is the brake handle. Pulling on those together, give you adjustable braking power. If you push these handles all the way forward so they are parallel to the ground, they engage the parking brake. These are great so you don't rip apart your hands as you try to slow yourself down. In back, is the third largish wheel attached to an adjustable lever and a variable length, lockable shock absorber to give you some extra cushioning and to change your reclinability. If you're traveling on a straightaway or going downhill, it's best to have the seat reclined all the way. For pushing up hill, it's best to have someone push you, err, to have the seat in its upright position. For portability, the big wheels pop off, and the rear wheel assembly collapses against the seat and the footrest retracts. One other easy adjustment is the wheels can be adjusted to angle way out to give you a lot more stability / \ or narrow | | for going through tight squeezes or office spaces.

I contacted Mike at Trekinetic and he was such wonderful help. He answered all of my questions. It was such a joy to chat with an individual who really understands the chair, and he should considering he sells them. He suggested the rear handlebars. These are a great option for people helping you up a hill or actually in my case, it made it easy to push the chair up some of the really steep hills at camp. I was close to ordering, however, I found out that the chairs take 10-12 weeks for building. As the summer was rapidly approaching, I felt that maybe I should settle for a lesser chair that I could get in 4-6 weeks. Then I realized, it wasn't just this summer I was getting the chair for, it was for many years to come!

The next hurdle was the $800 shipping fee. It was a hard number to swallow after everything else. Mike suggested flying over and bringing it back on the plane (as a chair) or having a friend bring it back. I didn't think buying a plane ticket and flying over to London just to bring back the chair was economical. Then *lightbulb* I realized my good friend Sarah was going to be in London when the chair was ready. She and her daughter, who was in Ireland for the World Championships for Irish Step Dancing, were heading over to London for a few days before hopping back across the pond. They agreed to bring it back for me. Winning!

Come back tomorrow for more!

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Part II...Decision time

Part II
Price then came into play, a little bit, since I was paying for this out-of-pocket. One of the two chairs made in the US was in the mid 2Ks, the other 5K...the Trekinetic is 7K+. Seeing that high price, I was a little turned off and continued my research.

I was now leaning more towards the lower end of the spectrum. This chair, the Invacare Top End Crossfire was the most innocuous of the three chairs. It looked most like a regular sports wheelchair. It had knobby back wheels and bigger than normal front wheels. These front wheels, however, seemed smaller than necessary when handling wild(er) terrains. Also, one other "fault" was that it didn't have a braking system.

While these "faults" were somewhat big in the grand scheme of things, I started to shy away from this chair. Looking at the other chair, the Lasher Sport BT-ATB (ATB for All-Terrain Beast), I dug that it had a braking system. It also had much bigger wheels in the front. This is a big plus, because with my old chair and also the Crossfire you would have to pop a wheelie to manage roots or rocks. If you were to encounter these in those chairs, your chair's forward momentum would cease and you would be ejected from your chair. But then looking at the chair as a whole, those larger front wheels add almost a foot past where your legs are. For a dual purpose chair, this would limit its use in a day-to-day setting (working in an
office, shopping, etc.).

With the other two chairs not so great in my mind for what I was looking for, I was leaning toward the Trekinetic. Since the Trekinetic is not available for sale in the US, I realized I had to step up the game on research. I found that there was a Trekinetic user from South Africa who was blogging about her experiences with her chair (her blog is here). We chatted back and forth via her blog and she answered a lot of questions I had had about the day-to-day use. She made the comment that while the chair does cost quite a bit, it's a versatile chair that can handle just about anything you throw at it and will be an investment worth making.

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