Eighteen months ago the bicycle was about as far removed from my thought pattern as Milli Vanilli and that whole painful scene that left me out in the cold right before senior prom.  But since then, I’ve gotten back on the saddle (I still catch myself calling it a seat) to the point where a day doesn’t go by without spending some time on a bike.

This reconnection has introduced me to a number of folks spread out along a wide range of the bicycle spectrum.  Everyone seems to embrace their bike in their own special way.  What I’ve been struck by is that regardless of their area of interest, anyone mildly committed to cycling, is also a cycling advocate.

The Messenger is a wonderful forum for that advocacy.  I appreciate the opportunity to express my passion for my bike.

The trail to my bike came directly from my role as a father.  Our oldest daughter is severely disabled.  My wife, my youngest daughter and I, cared for Megan 24/7 for over twenty years.  Two years ago, she moved to a facility nearby that’s better able to meet her needs.   With my new-found freedom, I was pulled toward finding a way to make it easier on caregivers to follow.

Just weeks after we’d packed up Megan’s things, I stumbled across a working combination of a wheelchair and a bicycle coming out of the local nursing home. The bike’s ingenious design, the shear delight on the faces of the rider and the driver and the immediate understanding of how the bike could complement the task of caregiving, stopped me dead in my tracks. They drove right by as they headed up the street and I got a good, long look.  And in that moment all the possibilities of the wheelchair bike hit me at once.  It was like the 4th of July was going off inside my head.  It took a moment or two for me to process it all.  Soon my slack-jawed stupor cleared and I took my next steps with my life forever changed.

I bought my own wheelchair bike, just like the one I had seen, the very next day.  I started a business around the bike with the idea that it could change the whole caregiving experience.  Families and their disabled loved ones could get outside, get exercise and stimulation, and become more involved in the community.  People in nursing homes; be they residents or employees would have a tool that could make every day a little brighter, a little better.  I invested every dime I had and a bunch that I had borrowed.  I invested every bit of energy I could summon.  I hit it as hard as I could.   But nothing happened.

Late last year it was apparent that my wheelchair bicycle business was rolling off into the sunset, to die a quiet, cash-strapped death.  The wheelchair bike was just too expensive.  As the economy worsened, it just made my dream all the more elusive.  Knowing that I had tried to do something to help, did little to make it hurt any less.  And just as it got about as low as it could go, an amazing thing happened.

My youngest brother had an idea.  He has a buddy who is a marvelously talented metal fabricator.  He put the three together and we went to work on building a wheelchair bicycle of our own.  What’s come from that is CAREBIKE.  And it has turned out better than I could have ever imagined.  It’s much easier to use and tremendously less expensive than my first wheelchair bike.

CAREBIKE was created not for just the benefit of someone that uses a wheelchair. Our aim is to also bring about a positive impact on caregivers.  Our experience in raising Megan was that very quickly we became isolated.  Early on we got the sense that we were pretty much on our own.  No one we knew had a child like Megan. No one we knew had the kind of concerns and demands we had.  CAREBIKE would have made a difference.  Looking back on it, the chance for all of us to get out and be more involved in everyday activities would have put the entire experience in a different light.  CAREBIKE is all about making it easier for caregivers now and in the future.

I picked Megan up at her new home a couple of Saturdays ago and along our CAREBIKE, we went over to the University of South Florida to attend a Special Olympics event. Once there, I loaded her and her wheelchair up on the CAREBIKE and we took in all there was to see on campus that day.  With all the ADA compliant access, we got in, around and through the track stadium and traveled from one end of the campus to another.  We even went as far as to ride CAREBIKE over to the Shriners Hospital to show it off to our old friends there.  No one there at USF that day took in more than Megan and I.  It was a red-letter day for my daughter and I and CAREBIKE made it all possible.

CAREBIKE is manufactured in Casselberry. We offer, free, no obligation test rides anywhere in the state of Florida.  We will also deliver the bike free-of-charge anywhere in Florida.   Our mission is to get CAREBIKE into the hands of those that can use it most.  And we will do whatever we can to make that happen.