Rich is, in his words, an “active guy.” In fact, he is a skilled athlete who competes at very high levels. He says that early in his rehab, “Sports was the question I needed answers to.” Physical activity and recognition in competition motivate him. “Without activity in my life … it’s hard to have a sense of who I am.” The therapists at his rehab centre knew about wheelchairs for everyday use, but Rich wanted to re-establish himself as an athlete and an active person, “not just in one activity, but in anything that was available in the world…. When I came to this new life, I said, okay, what doors open for me? What can I still do? I wanted to do everything I could to show [family, friends and myself] how normal I still was.”
Rich also cares about the look of his chair. “Your chair is kind of an extension of you … your outfit … your presentation. It may be alright to be flashy on the tennis court but you may not want that same attention when using your everyday chair. It’s important to consider your lifestyle and the activities you do when deciding on a chair.” What’s most important to Rich is to portray a positive image while making himself look inviting and approachable to others.
Through his own research, Rich realized early on that he could achieve his goals by having the right equipment. He also realized that he would have to be creative and do his own research. Rich was so creative, in fact, he eventually built his own chairs.
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Rich remembers his early days in rehab. At first, he had no idea what kind of equipment was available, but he knew a lot about biking. This helped him to imagine exactly what he wanted in a wheelchair. He recalls, “I thought about the colours, and various wheels and how it was going to be different and cool, and not a typical chrome hospital chair … I wanted all the information about everything, so that I could pick and choose what I wanted to do first.”
Rich started asking his therapists about the different activities that he saw going on outside the hospital. But, “they didn’t necessarily have all the answers. They knew what they’d been informed about locally in that area. But in the big picture, there wasn’t a whole lot.” Although they could help him with his equipment for everyday use, they weren’t really a resource for him on specialized sports equipment, which surprised him. “I thought if anybody should have the answers, it would be these people that are educated about the population…. They told me to talk to the wheelchair vendor.”
Rich was in for another surprise. Like his therapists, the wheelchair vendors knew about equipment for day-to-day use, but “they had no idea about the specialized equipment” for sports. “I would expect somebody that charges as much as they do for the product … to know what you’re ordering, what you’re buying. It’s like if you buy a car. If you’re going to be spending forty, sixty thousand dollars on a vehicle, well, you’re going to hope that that salesperson is going to know the vehicle inside and out and tell you all the perks, explain everything, and do what he can to get you the best product. That wasn’t the case with sports equipment.” Rich felt that the therapists and the vendors bounced him back and forth, each hoping that the other could answer his questions.
When the therapists and wheelchair vendors didn’t have all the answers to his questions about sports equipment, Rich did his own research. And he didn’t waste any time. He started playing tennis weekly while he was still in rehab. “I was playing in my regular chair that I was demoing from the vendor. I didn’t even have my own chair initially. I was still assessing them.” He started asking the other players about their chairs: what was different between their tennis chairs and their everyday chairs, what chairs they would recommend. He learned that a chair for tennis could weigh about half of what an everyday chair weighs. You also sit lower and have more camber on the wheels so that you have a better centre of gravity, which makes the chair easier to move around and turn.
Through playing tennis, Rich also learned about a powerful source of information for specialized sports equipment: “people who were already out in the world and [who] had their own experiences.” Eventually, Rich developed a strong network of wheelchair sports enthusiasts that became one his most important sources of information. He also started getting information from posters and magazines such as Sports and Spokes, an American publication that he calls the “bible of disabled sports.” He also realized that different parts of the country emphasize sports and recreation in rehabilitation more than others and that this can directly influence the availability of equipment and programs for people with disabilities.
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Rich developed a number of ways to get the equipment he needs to pursue his love of sports. He discovered that, “There are a few companies in the States that will sell you products in which you do all the measuring yourself. So, you have to be pretty knowledgeable about what you’re ordering. You do all the measuring, all the assessment and you send in your form to them. They order the product and essentially, it cuts out the middleman. They make a little buck, but you still save. I would save approximately a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars on a wheelchair by going through a company like that. So, I did that for some of my sports equipment. Then I would pick it up in Niagara Falls, New York, drive it across the border [into Canada] myself.”
Rich’s natural mechanical ability matches his athletic ability. “I can make exactly the product I want … whereas when you order from a vendor, everything is in one-inch increments … I have built one everyday chair and two tennis chairs thus far. I ended up selling one of the tennis chairs to a friend, and the everyday chair I still use.”
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As an athlete, Rich has another option for accessing sports equipment. Sometimes manufacturers ask him to help market one of their chairs. Even then, he takes his own measurements: thigh length, lower leg length, foot position, dump of the chair and back height. “From my nine years of experience, I knew what would work for me.” Even with that, Rich adapts the chair once he starts using it. As an example, he tapered the seat cushion to be wider in the back and narrower in the front because, as he points out, our hips are wider than our knees.
Rich tends to prefer his own chairs over the ones available through the vendors, but he says, “I just don’t have the same time and energy as I had a few years ago to explore and design and build actual products myself.… It’s just where I am right now in life.… I have all these new opportunities in front of me and I don’t want to miss those open doors.”
Rich minimizes the risk involved in getting specialized equipment by taking control with thorough research and doing his own measurements, so he has been satisfied with his purchases. But he acknowledges decisions still come down to an educated guess. “You weigh the costs with the benefits. And you hope that it’s going to be worth the purchase.” And the risk is substantial. Push rims on a racing chair can cost as much as two hundred dollars a pair and they are non-returnable. There often is no “equipment pool” that would allow people to try before they buy.
Rich offers insights about why the equipment costs so much and is not readily available. “I think what it comes down to is that [sports equipment] is not a big money-maker….” He offers the example of the tight-fitting chair. “They’ve known from day one [that] … a tighter fitting chair is a better product, but it all comes down to money. You know, they have to make a certain number of jigs for a particular product. It’s more cost efficient to make twenty moulds for a chair than it is to make two hundred.”
Rich describes a racing chair as “the tightest piece of equipment.” He argues that if the size of the chair is off by even an eighth of an inch, it will affect its performance. He compares using a chair that doesn’t fit to trying to run a race in shoes that are one size too big. “You’re not only going to perform more poorly, chances are you’re going to increase [your risk] of injuries….”
The wheels on racing chairs are different from everyday chairs too. He notes, “The wheels are angled; they’re cambered a little bit more, so that the chair is more stable.” They are larger, lighter and narrower, like bicycle wheels. The push rims range in size from 12 inches to 18 inches in quarter-inch increments. He says, “I can select the push rim that I think would be best for me depending on wind, hills, and course layout.”
Rich describes the influence of the size of the push rims on a racing chair: the smaller the push rim, the harder it is to push. A larger rim also makes the wheel easier to turn. Rich explains that a half-inch difference in the size of the push rim is equivalent to one or two gears on a racing bicycle, so choosing the right rims is important. He also factors in body weight: a bigger person will want to climb a hill in a lower gear. “I knew because of my size and body weight, a smaller push would be too hard, [especially] uphill. Pretty much any kind of push rim will work on the flats. There will be one size that is better for you, and especially when you get to the hills.” Of course, to find out what is best for each person, Rich again recommends talking to people who have used the products.
Rich’s most specialized sport is mono-skiing, also called sit-skiing. He describes the mono-ski as “almost like a boot in the way that it fits you.… I sit in [a seat that] wraps around my bum, my hips, my thigh. You strap yourself [in].” As with his other sports equipment, Rich adapted his ski for better performance and safety. “I’ve made a special back support … with a kidney belt that gives me support around my trunk to help balance and control the equipment, but at the same time doesn’t restrict my movement. All of this … sits on top of a tough chromoly frame and performance shock. The shock is the same that they use in racing cars … the shock works the same as [your] knees on a ski hill. So it absorbs all the bumps and jumps as opposed to throwing you all around.”
Rich pays as much attention to the weight of his everyday chairs as he does for his sports chairs. He analyzes the weight of his chair right down to its various parts. The frame must be a lightweight material such as aluminum or titanium. The type of backrest is an important consideration in the weight of the chair. Rich notes, “They say that orthopaedic backrests are the best things for your back, and I agree, but at the same time, the orthopaedic backs are very heavy.” He used lighter upholstery on the chair he designed. Even the hardware that holds the seat on is important. Rich says that metal hardware can add up to four pounds on a chair. “Four pounds of everyday pushing … is a big difference. So I just designed something out of ABS plastic so it’s a lot lighter.”
Rich drives and manually loads his chair into the car to transport it. Because he is active and works full-time, he can count on lifting his chair in and out of his car a minimum of four times a day. He needs the chair to be lightweight to protect against injuries to his wrists and shoulders.
The width of the chair also affects accessibility. “The chair I made is quite compact and narrow.” Using a snug seat, moving the wheels closer to the frame, and moving the push rims in on the wheels allow him easier access through public doors and spaces.
Rich used other design features to improve the accessibility of the chair he made. His feet were tucked further back than they would be in most other chairs, which allowed him to get close enough to use all doorways, to open windows, to use the refrigerator and to get closer to the tables in restaurants. Having his feet tucked under him more allows him to get about six inches closer to things. He points out that “when it’s difficult to reach forward because you don’t have use of the trunk muscles, that six inches is a big thing.”
By controlling the positioning of his feet and legs through the design of the chair, Rich also found that he could put his legs in the best possible position to prevent spasms. “There’s only one position I can sit in where my legs don’t fire up, and I was able to make it so that I can wheel down the sidewalk and my legs don’t jump and fly off the footrest.”
He notes that in his everyday chair, he sits higher “for social interaction” whereas, in his sports chairs, he sits lower “for performance.”
Few people will be as involved as Rich is in sports, in general. Even fewer will go to the effort of making their own equipment. Just the same, Rich has plenty to share with others. He advises people to get involved with the selection of their equipment through their own research, and that one of the best sources of information is people who are already using the equipment. He advises people to pay attention to their particular needs and desires, so that they will make their equipment fit them, and not the other way around. He recommends as lightweight a chair as possible to reduce the fatigue that is caused by manual pushing all day long. His experience with the positioning of his feet, the tighter fit and smaller size of his chairs can benefit everyone who uses a wheelchair. Most of all, Rich recommends that people get out there and continue living their life even if that means doing it while sitting down.
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