Adaptive bicycles for disabled children and adults

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The e-bike revolution has made it possible to ride heavy bicycles that are adapted to enable disabled children and adults to enjoy cycling with greater ease. Yet even before the popularity of e-bikes many disabled people have been cycling ordinary bikes, tandems, recumbents and other types of bikes. Yet a challenge for riders of longer or wider bikes are physical barriers designed to prevent motor vehicles and motor bikes using traffic free trails that include 'A' frames or complicated gateways that are impossible to get through.
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Oldhippy

Cynical idealist
Agreed. I think there are quite a few of us on here that have written to, called and petitioned our respective councils to point out this stupidity out many times.
 
Just seen this on BBC news. Don't get me wrong, it's great that people can get such a sense of freedom by riding round a park - but how much more freedom there could be if bike paths were made accessible for all bikes ... and it surely wouldn't be all that difficult on most paths. There'll always be some that are just impossible for full access because of the lay of the land, older construction etc etc but anything that can be classed as 'recent' or 'modern' should be relatively simple to modify for full accessibility for tandems, trikes and the like.
 
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harlechjoe

Guest
Just seen this on BBC news. Don't get me wrong, it's great that people can get such a sense of freedom by riding round a park - but how much more freedom there could be if bike paths were made accessible for all bikes ... and it surely wouldn't be all that difficult on most paths. There'll always be some that are just impossible for full access because of the lay of the land, older construction etc etc but anything that can be classed as 'recent' or 'modern' should be relatively simple to modify for full accessibility for tandems, trikes and the like.

I am often left with a strong sense that organisations such as Sustrans, Cyclin Uk and British Cycling talk about inclusiveness yet evidence reveals their failure to influence practical changes to benefit users of adaptive bicycles.
 

Oldhippy

Cynical idealist
I am often left with a strong sense that organisations such as Sustrans, Cyclin Uk and British Cycling talk about inclusiveness yet evidence reveals their failure to influence practical changes to benefit users of adaptive bicycles.

Very well said indeed! They and other groups should be promoting at every opportunity both for bikes and those stupid bloody gates that prevent so much access should be vilified.
 
Very well said indeed! They and other groups should be promoting at every opportunity both for bikes and those stupid bloody gates that prevent so much access should be vilified.
It is clear to me, at any rate, as a normal 'utility/leisure cyclist' that if I were to need to ride a recumbent, a tricycle, tow a trailer, use adult stabilisers or indeed if I were less 'sturdy' than I am now - and at 75 already, I doubt I'm going to be getting any more sturdy! - that I would be very, very limited in where I could ride my bike as I would not be able to physically access a great many of the paths and tracks where it is safer for an older, younger, inexperienced or handicapped-by-anything-else cyclist to ride.
Just as great a problem as not being able to physically access a pleasant path is when one can access the path - but not leave it at an appropriate point, and must either continue on further or turn back and return. I occasionally meet up with a gentleman who rides an electric trike due to Parkinson's disease, and there are several points like this. At some of these so-called 'bike access points', there is a wide gate that could be opened if (a) he had a key and/or (b) he could get off his trike, manoeuvre the heavy gate open and closed, then get back on his trike. Now, this being the outskirts of a city, and he only goes out in the middle of the day in fine weather, he does sometimes 'take the risk' and rely on someone coming along who will be able to open and close the gate for him - and has not been disappointed yet but that's not the point ...

Nowadays we consider a modern or updated public building to be 'not fit for purpose' if it is physically inaccessible for people with a range of handicaps, disabilities and/or differences. Why should modern or updated provision of public paths and roads not be subject to similar rights of accessibility?
 
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