New Guy

[vw driver]

I just joined this site and am pleased to find this thread for people with physical challenges. My wife Lisa has Cerebral Palsy and has been in a wheelchair her whole life. I built a trike a few years ago and we did some riding but then my daughter with Down Syndrome came to live with us and realized the two seat trike was not going to work so I traded it for a VW bug. I started building a three seat trike last summer and got it on the road in the fall just when the weather was getting cold. I've only done a few test rides around the neighborhood and it rode good although I found a few things I want to change. We just hang the wheelchair on some hooks and strap it down with bungee cords. I rode motorcycles for years I am to they age where I appreciate not having to balance a motorcycle and put my feet down every time we stop. The new trike drives like a VW car with handlebars instead of a wheel, very comfortable.

 

[Oldmsocko]

Welcome to Trike Talk. Post often.

 

[Ohio Eddie]

Welcome to Trike Talk, from S/W Ohio.

 

[pcombe]

Welcome:
Hang around and post often. There are allot of good folks on this forum. ThumbUp

 

[vw driver]

Thanks for the welcome everyone. We are planning to put some miles on the trike this summer. We are in western Wash. state so we don't get to ride in the winter although when I was younger I rode in the winter but those days are gone. We are having a real rain and wind storm right now although we did see a guy riding a motorcycle today. Hope he made it home OK. He looked pretty miserable.

 

[87Trike1200]

Welcome to TT - we're glad you found us. Your trike looks great - let us know as you make changes and improvements. Have fun, post often, ride safe! :wave4:

 

[rmrc51]

Welcome to Trike Talk! ThumbUp

 

[Veritas44]

Welcome ThumbUp
Glad you're here.

 

[Lucky]

Welcome glad you joined us.RIDE SAFE

 

[Dragonrider]

Nice job! Bet the wife and daughter will love riding it.

 

[vw driver]

I still have a few things to do on the trike. The rear fenders are off right now, I didn't leave enough clearance and the tires are hitting on bumps. I need to install gauges and a horn and do some painting but everything seems to function as it should, just a few odds and ends to take care of. ThumbUp

 

[Ray Monroe]

Hi VW and welcome to TT. I sure like your work; let us hear from you often. We have our share of different maladies but one thing that is not different is our passion for riding. We are glad you joined us.

 

[vw driver]

Thank you. I am not in a wheelchair but my wife Lisa is. We have been together for 12 years so I have been packing a wheelchair around for that long. She has a motorized chair that we haul in our VW bus and a manual chair that we carry on a roof rack on our VW bug. I still need to put some hooks on the trike for hauling the wheelchair but summer is still a long way off up here in the Pacific NW so there is time.ThumbUp

 

[AZTriGlide]

Welcome to Trike Talk. Very impressive trike!

 

[vw driver]

I have been out the last couple of nights building a rack to carry Lisa's wheelchair. It's done except for cleaning up and painting. Originally I was going to paint the trike blue but I don't have time to sand everything and it's been to cold to do any nice painting so everything is flat black at this point. We met a group of trike riders here in our area that go on runs and things so we are hoping to ride with them some this summer.

 

[vw driver]

A lighter wheelchair, I could live with that. Any idea how much they cost? This one won't be bad to load on the trike because I don't have to lift it very high but when we use our VW bug I am having to lift it up to the roof rack and like all of us I'm not getting any younger. I can't see very well from your picture how you carry your chair on your trike. It looks like you have some sort of rack on the back but it's hard to tell for sure. I'm ready for summer and warm weather too. ThumbUp

 

[Tinbasher]

Hi and welcome.

wheels is right about lighter chairs, the aren't just easy to lift they are easier all round. Those steel chairs weigh almost 50lbs.

lightweight chairs turn up on eBay often and sometimes in thrift stores.

 

[vw driver]

So how is everyone? We are having a little spurt of warmer weather lately so I took the trike out for another test ride today. I put steering damper from a VW bug on it because it had a slight wobble at low speed, nothing terrible. The steering damper fixed the problem, I can go down the road and take my hands off the bars and it tracks straight, no wobbles or wheel flop. I had an old windshield laying around so I put that on too. Does anyone know how to get scratches out of plexiglass? It also needs a blue seat cover for the drivers seat. Lisa hasn't gone for a ride yet but she is ready to go, if the weather stays warm we may get in a short ride soon.ThumbUp

 

[vw driver]

We have a nice sunny day today, 62 degrees, so we took the trike on a shopping trip to K Mart. It's the first ride for Lisa on this trike and she liked it a lot. A guy came up to us and asked if he could take our picture and I said sure. He said he had MS and sounded like he was kind of interested in getting a trike. Maybe he will get one. There is still work to be done but everything is safe and legal at this point. I'm going to mount a spare tire in case of a flat plus a trunk for carrying things.ThumbUp

 

[champsman97045]

Really nice trike and especially the mount for the chair.

 

[vw driver]

Really nice trike and especially the mount for the chair.

Thanks. The trike is an economy build, I didn't have a ton of money to spend on it. It's ugly right now, I didn't have time to do any shiny paint and chrome (although I did buy a chrome air cleaner for it) but it's mechanically sound, stable and comfortable, goes down the road really good, steers great and of course it has good old dependable VW power. It's good to be out doing some riding again.ThumbUp

 

[vw driver]

Hey. I added some things to the trike. I found an old, vintage Vetter trunk and added a camera to the back. With the tall seats I could not see what was directly behind (which I didn't like) so I ordered this unit from Wal Mart and it works great. I still need to wire the lights on the trunk, in my opinion you can never have enough lights so people can see you. I also put air shocks on the back which really smoothed out the ride. Now if we could just get some warm, dry weather.ThumbUp