Handcycling Adventures


By Sydney Jacobs

The garage door opens, groaning and twanging, as sunlight floods the space cluttered with bicycles, boxes, garden tools and camping equipment. At the center is a gleaming red handcycle. Lifting its front end, I pull the Freedom Ryder outside and let it roll forward against the bumper of the van parked in the driveway. I check the tire pressure, put on my silver helmet and stash snack food, water and cell phone into a small bag on the back of the frame. A long, yellow fiberglass pole topped with a neon-orange flag slips easily into a ferrule behind the seat.

My wheelchair bumps against the seat of the trike as I transfer heavily down into it. I lift each leg into the legrests, securing them with bandannas wrapped around the cycle frame. Finally I push the wheelchair back into the garage, watching it settle against the lawnmower, and adjust my sunglasses.

Pushing backwards and leaning away from the car, I glide down the steep driveway, pick up speed and flow left onto the street. As the wind brushes my cheeks in greeting, I take a deep breath. My Freedom Ryder and I are off on another adventure.

And we’ve had a few since the handcycle came into my life two years ago. The first time I’d ridden one was in Seattle, 20 years earlier. I’d borrowed a cycle from George, a friend who rode 12 miles to work and back over that city’s hilly terrain. The sensation of speed, the pumping rhythm of my arms, transported me back to the freedom of youthful cycling days. They began as a 6-year-old, careening down the driveway and crashing in the street. At 16 I bought a sleek 10-speed and went on a memorable 100-mile mountain ride with my high school sweetheart. In college I couldn’t imagine exchanging the freedom of my green Raleigh for the burden of car ownership.

In the years since, many new handcycles have appeared on the market. I tried several, but either couldn’t justify the expense or found them unsuited to the kind of riding I hoped to do. Cycling remained a distant desire while kayaking dominated my outdoor life.

But as life changed with marriage and children, and my shoulders progressively suffered from overuse, cycling became more attractive. It seemed like an ideal family activity, and I had no shoulder pain when riding a CYBEX stationary cycle. I just needed to find the right trike and the money to buy it.

Then an Abilities Expo came to town the same week I came into some unexpected cash. At the Expo, I climbed aboard a Freedom Ryder prototype and knew immediately that I’d found both a new toy and a new passion. It arrived four months later, in time for my birthday.

Riding the handcycle was not as easy as I expected. It took weeks of adjustment and experimentation to keep my knees clear of the hand crank or out of the spokes when making sharp turns. Figuring out when and how to change gears also was not so simple, as I learned on my first ride outside our neighborhood.

It was a sunny spring Sunday; we were on our way to a picnic not far off a major bike trail. My husband Mark dropped me off along the path, which follows the banks of the Potomac River. As usual, I rode alone. If I didn’t arrive at the picnic by a certain time, Mark would come looking for me.

I started off at an exhilarating pace, the excitement and a little first-time anxiety giving extra strength to muscles not accustomed to cycling. But after a couple of miles the trail left the gentle gradient of the river and began following more varied terrain. At the top of a rise, I stopped to rest, then glided downhill into a deep ravine. Picking up speed, I changed gears upward. Rounding a sharp corner and crossing a bridge over a stream, I realized too late that I’d never get up the steep slope on the other side in such a high gear. I couldn’t gear down without pedaling; I couldn’t pedal because I wasn’t in a low enough gear. And turning around was impossible; the trail was too narrow. As I sat there, stuck at midslope and feeling very conspicuous, two cyclists rode by without so much as saying hello, let alone asking if I needed assistance. It occurred to me that strangers might not realize I couldn’t just get off the trike and walk it to the top of the hill.

I managed to push myself–as if it were a wheelchair–to the top, arriving at the party on time and cheered on by the picnickers.

And it didn’t take me long to learn about head protection. As a child I never thought of wearing a helmet. Today I wouldn’t think of riding without one and I’ve become a shameless evangelist on the subject. The handcycle always attracts the attention of children, particularly boys, and often provides an opening for talking to kids about helmets.

Not long ago I flipped the trike on a secluded bike path while riding to my son’s soccer game. Skidding upside down I could only think, “Thank God for my helmet!” The cycle was not damaged, and except for a few minor scrapes I was uninjured. But for the rest of the ride, I stopped everyone I saw cycling without a helmet and told them that mine had likely just saved my life.

An Illusory Freedom

I usually ride alone along suburban roads and a network of trails through parks and stream valleys. Most trips are three hours or less since I don’t tow my wheelchair and I can’t get into bathrooms on the cycle. I have a favorite spot by a stream where I transfer onto a tree stump to eat a snack, watch birds and meditate. I feel free and independent, a spiritual sensation identical to kayaking. In a kayak I’m capable of going places not possible in a wheelchair. On the cycle I can travel faster and much farther.

But it wasn’t long before I realized that the freedom I felt was mostly illusory. The handcycle extends my range of travel way beyond what I can do in my chair–but only as long as the road or path is barrier-free. If I encounter obstacles, I must either backtrack or depend on the kindness of strangers.

One day I encountered a large mattress blocking the sidewalk I often use along a busy road. The curb was high and the Freedom Ryder sits low, so jumping off the sidewalk risked damage to the cycle and the cars whizzing by at 50 mph also made that option unpalatable. My only option was to backtrack to another route. But before I began the tedious process of turning around, a motorist stopped and moved the mattress out of the way.

In an urban environment where people usually don’t make eye contact, let alone exchange words, a request for assistance often must be explicitly framed.

One warm summer evening, on the way to an outdoor event with Quilla, my 8-year-old daughter, the sidewalk we were riding on was blocked by a high curb. A metal barrier made turning around impossible; the only alternative was to wheel backwards one block where we could follow a different route. The narrow ledge we were on was not straight, and backing up would be slow and nerve-wracking. Meanwhile, traffic zipped by as dusk fell. Another cyclist came by, hardly slowing enough to glance at us.

“Excuse me,” I called after him. “Could you give us a hand?” He stopped, and after I explained that I couldn’t stand up, I asked him to walk the legrests of the trike around so I was facing the opposite direction. He did so easily, without saying a word, then got back on his bike and pedaled away.

And one day, after a long, satisfying ride, a tire blew, stranding me on the same busy road where I’d earlier encountered the mattress. I got the attention of two women walking their dog, who called my husband to rescue me with the car. That incident prompted the purchase of the cell phone I now carry, and the creation of a portable repair kit. And I know that one of these days I will have to find a way to tow my wheelchair if I hope to be truly independent on much longer rides.

Quilla’s and my most memorable ride together occurred just three months after I got the trike. We were on our annual camping trip to Cape Henlopen, Del. Several miles of paved roads were built there during World War II to support a network of defenses guarding Delaware Bay. Today, they are open only to cyclists and pedestrians.

We spent our first day exploring most of the trail system. That evening Quilla and I decided to go for a short ride before dinner to try a new section of trail, but just a few minutes after leaving our campsite we came to the end of the pavement. The trail continued as a wide, flat path covered with pine needles. I hesitated, front wheel poised at the edge of the pavement.

“C’mon, Mom, you can do this,” Quilla encouraged. I knew the trike wasn’t meant as an off-road vehicle, but the path looked inviting so we plunged into the pine woods, our tires crunching along the semisoft ground. We veered onto a second trail, stopping where a tree had fallen across the path. The late afternoon sun filtered through the forest. Beyond the trees, a salt marsh spread before us, dotted with herons motionless against the cloudless sky. The sounds of the campground had faded; instead, a chorus of frogs rang out through the pine-sweet forest. We held our breath, holding onto the last few moments of a perfect spring day.

“Mom, I’m hungry. Let’s go back.”

I looked at the map. “How about going back on the section we haven’t done yet? It’s about the same distance, only a few minutes to the paved road.”

Quilla reluctantly agreed. We rode fast down the path. It became wet and a little muddy, and sloped downhill. I pedaled at a steady pace, afraid I’d get stuck if I stalled. Then we hit sand, which stopped me abruptly. Once again we studied the map. Quilla wanted to go back the way we had come, but turning around would be difficult and I worried about going uphill through the wetland. It appeared that there was less sand ahead.

Quilla walked her bike up the path, then came back to push me through the sand. With tremendous effort we went about 25 yards to firmer ground. I pedaled on for another minute independently, then foundered in sand again. A rustling sound came from nearby brush. I imagined a rabid raccoon or a human weirdo attacking us. For the first time I felt vulnerable. I was in no position to run away from danger and how could I protect my daughter from harm? Suddenly these gentle, quiet woods didn’t seem so friendly.

“Mom, I’m hungry! When are we going back?”

I looked at the map and showed Quilla where we were. “Look, the main road is here–we just have to get over this bit of sand,” I said in as cheerful a voice as I could muster. The sun had set and the light was fading quickly. I knew where we were, but didn’t know how far we had to go since the map was not drawn to scale. We had some water, but no food with us. At least it wasn’t cold. The “thing” in the woods rustled some more, then revealed itself to be a bird, a foraging brown thrasher.
“C’mon, Quilla, give me another push. Let’s sing. Yo ho heave ho!”

My daughter pushed. I moved six inches. The trike was mired in the deep sand. There was only one way I was going to get anywhere, and that was to crawl. Sliding off the cycle, I slithered along the forest floor. Quilla followed, towing my trike to higher ground where the sand was less deep. As twilight fell, the mosquitoes came out to eat. We made our way through the woods, alternately riding, crawling, towing and pushing ourselves and cycles. I wondered how long it would be before Mark went to the rangers to come look for us. A long-forgotten memory of being “lost” while hiking with my father came to mind (he always got us home before my Mom called the mountain rescue squad). I hoped Quilla had the same confidence in me that I’d had in my Dad.

Within 30 minutes, and with Quilla’s indispensable help, we found the paved road. We pedaled into our campsite as the last light of day faded, but not before Mark had reported us missing. I reported us ‘found’ five minutes later.


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