wheelchair andy

Thanks for the info Alex. Those basketball wheelchairs are pretty sweet, unfortunately I've never been a team sports kind of bloke so never got into the whole wheelchair basketball thing, hence no basketball wheelchair. Those things start at around £2000 for a real basic model so adapting a buggy is going to work out a lot cheaper. I kite from my wheelchair at the moment, but as a vehicle it's next to useless on anything but flat concrete, and even then it's impossible to safely use as a replacement for a buggy. For fairly static kiting the wheelchair is useable, but I'm hoping to hit the desert next year and I think the buggy is the best solution. A two wheeled buggy? How does that work for a wheelchair user, I cant imagine it'd be practical for me at all.

In what way are these extra long sideframes beneficial? Do they move the sitting position more forward and away from the rear axle? That's exactly what I'm looking for.

The servo's and thumb controls on the bar would be ridonkulously awesome, I can dream. I'm keeping it simple to start with and getting basic hand controls sorted out via levers, then I'll try find someone who can translate what Aero and Jimmy are on about. So the buggy is a PL standard buggy with a backrest fitted that I found on ebay (the one the guy was advertising as an Ozone buggy because it had an Ozone sticker on it, I'm not entirely convinced he hadn't stolen the thing), it's ripe to be mutated as soon as I find a willing welder.

I'm just back from an 8 hour round trip to pick up my soon to be bastardised buggy. I'm ready to start annoying anyone within a 100 mile radius who's in possession of any welding equipment and try to get a rough 'prototype' as soon as possible. I'm going to try and keep things as simple as possible to begin with, three wheels, simple hand levers on each side similar to the german(?) buggy a couple post back. From there I'll be able to decide if/how/when to make changes or improvements.

Great link popeye, thanks! This is pretty much exactly what I had in mind, except having one central lever that can steer left and right. Having separate handles on either side makes me think that I'm going to have to have some pretty quick hand swapping going on to correct oversteer or go from heading left to heading right. But then I realise that I'm an idiot and because moving one lever will affect the other, I'd be able to steer in any direction from either lever, nice. ("either lever" sounds weird) I'm basically going to get someone to try and copy this basic design, but probably with a roll bar similar, but taller and wider, than peters. I'm picking up a second hand PL buggy tomorrow to mutilate and experiment with, hopefully I'll find a car repair place or local welders to adopt a project and help me out. I got in touch with the guys at mobious who made the four wheeled buggy with a steering wheel and talked to them about my plans, just got this back from the guy who built the buggy: "Steering: We initially tried to have a joystick, as in your design, but the force to turn it when the buggy was stopped or moving slowly was a bit excessive so we bought a second hand 'teleflex' cable steering system (the type used in boats) and fitted a rubber boot from an auto parts store to stop sand getting into the cable. This worked flawlessly, and you could add one of those sweet chrome knobs that bus drivers and truckers love so you can spin the wheel with one hand. I'm sure a joystick as in your drawing coul work if the leverage is enough, but a small round wheel compared to a large metal stick seemed a bit safer on reflection. Locking the steering sounds a bit scary to me, these things can pick up a hell of a lot of speed, as I'm sure you're aware, and the ability to quickly edge upwind is kindof your only good brake to slow down, same with the straightening spring thing - it was actually quite useful with the wheel, you could turn the wheel so the wheels were pointed one way and then move the kite with both hands to tease the buggy around until it was facing the right direction and then straighten the wheel before you got a huge power dive in. Kite control: Having used the buggy with the steering wheel, I quite happily flew unhooked with my hand in the middle of the bar and we also used velcro ankle straps to hold wind/kitesurf harness spreader bars onto the frame of the buggy, so you could hook the bar in when you got tired. You can actually carve the kite up and down quite well with it hooked into one of these loops adn you can shift them forward or backward to affect how gusts hit the buggy (ie make it head up or bear away from the wind). Frame: The three wheeled buggies are pretty stable, but we (the instructors) have flipped them on quite a few occasions, as this would be difficult to recover from, we decided that for this buggy we needed a more stable wheelbase that would be as close to flip-proof as possible. We cut off the front bearing on the three wheel frame and welded a stainless crossbar and supports onto it. Then we added pivots so the wheels could turn parallel (as in a car) and a tie-rod between the wheels. This was easily done using bolts, threaded rod etc. In my opinion, the four wheel buggy with a steering wheel was way more fun than the regular three wheeler (would you drive a reliant?!) although Timo was dissapointed as he couldn't show off to tourists with his 'two wheel' trick as on the three wheelers. Honestly, this thing was crazy, I spun it out at least 720 degrees and it didn't flip. Was like being allowed to have a go-kart on the beach! As for building from scratch, we were pretty successful in using an existing buggy, in fact we didn't modify the back at all, apart from the harness hooks which were velcroed on. All we needed was an extra wheel and some work done on the front bar, I think we modified it in a day or so." It sounds like a pretty good way to go, and I've been looking at the teleflex system and even gokart steering systems which I think might both work well if I decide to try four wheels out on the buggy. Talking about having steering control on the kite bar; I started a thread on a welders forum asking for advice and this type of system came up in the conversation (http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=8404), it seemed to get a bit too complicated for me and the thought of so many cables and stuff getting in the way, plus not being about to easily release the control bar scared me off the idea.

Thanks Peter! Your set up looks similar to what I had in mind for attaching the kite directly to the buggy, I have a couple questions though. I take it that pulling on the red string releases the pulley, and therefore the kite, from the system? Do you connect a chicken loop through the central pulley in the picture, or just connect to the bar with some cord or rope? How did you end up on this design, did you try using a chicken loop and prefer this set up for ease and quickness? Are the other pulleys in the picture just spares or used in the system somewhere? I was thinking of having my system similar to yours but with a carabiner in the middle rather than a pulley, connecting to the bar via push or pull to release chicken loop like the Ozone megatron set-up. Any thoughts or advice from your experience would be great!

Wow, great link Jimmy, thanks. That's the first I've known of anyone in a wheelchair getting into an adapted buggy, email has been sent! Yep, Yorkshire gritstone, great stuff!

I'm a pom and was climbing in the UK at Stanage Edge in the Peak District. I ski a lot so head down to Thredbo or Coronet Peak in the winter. I'm in the UK at the moment.

Marty, Mountain Rescue saved my life without a doubt, on top of everything else I had an 'open-book' pelvic fracture and had ruptured both my femoral arteries, so I was basically bleeding out internally. Their doctor was on the ball and called in a chopper straight away, I was on the operating table within an hour. Even then I was resuscitated three times I havent bought a buggy yet, I was debating whether to get one and have it adapted, or start from scratch and have my own built. I paraglide (and need a buggy for that too, I sit in it and get people to throw me off) and thought about getting one buggy made for the two sports so I dont have to travel around with two buggies all the time. Only problem is, to be able to paraglide with it, the buggy needs to be 20kgs max, so it's have to be made from ali rather than steel. I fly a Flexifoil Rage 2.5m and a HQ Beamer 3.6m on a bar.

Hi JKS. No worries about any questions at all. I have no movement in my legs or hips at all, I have my ab's, but without the legs to help balance is difficult, near impossible when strapped to a kite. Sit on the floor with you legs straight out infront of you and your arms off the floor, see how far you can lean to one side and recover without using your arms. Then try the same thing again but with your legs off the floor too (and without moving them to counter balance) and you'll see how little I can go in any direction before I can't recover to an upright position again, if a kite is pulling on me then trying to counteract the pull is pretty much physically impossible for me. I was abseiling from the top of a crag and my (poorly placed, by me) protection gave way, fell 65ft onto rocks and got a bit smashed.

Thanks Jimmy. I hadn't thought of having the lever sprung to centre, that sound like a pretty good idea. Would it be enough to keep the buggy on track without the need to 'lock' the lever in place do you think? PS - When you are already planning on how to kite if you become paralysed from biking you know you have problems! I have a climbing buddy who's planned out how he can do everything id he ends up in a wheelchair, and another friend who paraglides and even built their new house as completely wheelchair accessible incase they ended up that way, I think they're both completely mental, in the best possible way!

Thanks Joel. I was thinking of keeping myself strapped into the buggy. I have complete upper body strength and control, but without leg muscles to help, it's pretty near impossible to stop myself from getting pulled by the kite with out using a hand to counteract, that would leave me needing three hands, one to steer the buggy, one to control the kite and one to keep me balanced. I was actually thinking of fixing a spreader bar across the buggy and fixing the chicken loop directly to the buggy rather than myself, any advice in that area would be great too. As for the lock on the hand steering lever, I was thinking of something like a bicycle brake lever fixed to the top of the steering lever itself, so that as soon as my hand was on the lever it's unlocked and free to move.

Hi all, So following a climbing accident a couple years ago I'm in a wheelchair but still like to spend most of my time outdoors and basically get in as much trouble as possible. I sick of getting dragged out of the wheelchair by my kite (it really freaks people out too) and want to work out a way of kite buggying. I cant use my legs at all so need to be able to steer the buggy by hand, I use a control bar rather than handles so I'd have one hand for each. At the moment I'm thinking that the best thing to do is to have a central lever between my legs, attached to front fork so that I steer left when I push the lever and vice versa. I'm thinking that having the lever lock in position would be a good idea (as long as it has a quick release system) so that I'm not having to hold the lever all the time and can have two hands on the bar 80% of the time. Something like this: I'd have to extend the frame too, so my legs are supported separately from the front wheel and out of the way. Does anyone have any experience or knowledge of anyone in a wheelchair kiting and what adjustments or modifications they made to their rig at all. Any info or advice would be really helpful. Thanks.