AdvenChair Sells First Shipment of All-Terrain Wheelchairs; Rolls Out Free Demo Rides on Local Trails

AdvenChair off road hiking chair by the Deschutes River in Oregon

A state that is known for extraordinary sightings in the wilderness, is about to have quite a few more. But rather than catching a fleeting glimpse of a large apelike creature, local hikers can expect to get a good look at an agile, bright orange, all-terrain wheelchair — known in these parts as AdvenChair.

AdvenChair is the missing link that allows people with mobility challenges to go off the beaten path with family and friends. It combines mountain bike parts with a three-wheeled ergonomic design, an adjustable seat, disc brakes, and multiple straps and contact points for navigating rugged trails and unstable terrain.

“At the beginning of last month, there was only one AdvenChair roaming the Cascade trails,” said AdvenChairman CEO Geoff Babb, who devised the souped-up wheelchair as a way to keep exploring the wilderness after surviving two brain-stem strokes. “Now we’ve got a whole fleet of them out there.”

AdvenChair has just completed its first production run of ten chairs. Six of them are on their way to families and groups for team-oriented outdoor adventures in various parts of the world. Two will be used for free demonstration rides and rentals this summer, giving Central Oregonians and visitors unique opportunities to experience the wild in an incredibly rugged and nimble all-terrain wheelchair. And that leaves just two AdvenChairs remaining for sale.

For starters, AdvenChair is collaborating with Cog Wild and LOGE Camp Bend to host a series of free Demo Days. Located on Century Drive on the far west side of Bend, LOGE Camp has its own Mountain Bike Skills Course meandering around the perimeter of the property.

“The variety of rock gardens, tight turns, and ramps makes it the ideal proving ground for AdvenChair riders and family members,” said Jack Arnold, AdvenChair’s chief designer. “Better yet, from the LOGE Camp’s setting, we can take a short hike on the adjacent Rimrock trail system, which offers a rewarding real-world experience.”

AdvenChair’s Demo Days are scheduled on three different Saturdays — August 7, September 11, and October 9. Groups can sign up for one of four 90-minute sessions scheduled throughout each day, all of which meet at Cog Wild’s outdoor headquarters in the southeast corner of the LOGE Camp property.

For those wanting a longer excursion after the demo, AdvenChair will be available for rent on each of the following Sundays — August 8, September 12, and October 10 — at just $75 for a half-day (four hours).

Also this summer, AdvenChair is available for free hikes through Oregon Adaptive Sports (OAS) Community Hiking Days. On alternating Tuesdays, members of the OAS team are guiding outings on some of Central Oregon’s favorite trails, including the Deschutes River Trail and Shevlin Park. Hikes are scheduled for July 27, August 10 and August 24, departing at 8am and returning at around 2pm. For more information and registration, visit oregonadaptivesports.org.

On top of all that, AdvenChair can also be seen at SOAR 2021, Destination Rehab’s special all-day event at the Bend Pavilion, Saturday, July 31 starting at 9 am. It’s designed to benefit individuals who have conditions such as stroke, brain injury, spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, and Parkinson’s disease.

Another reason for AdvenChair’s increased visibility this year is an upcoming feature on one of Oregon Public Broadcasting’s signature programs:  Oregon Field Guide. A crew from OPB visited Bend for interviews with Geoff Babb and other AdvenChair team members in mid-June, while the fleet of chairs was being assembled. They will be returning on August 2 for an extended hike at Smith Rock State Park that will become the focus of a seven-minute segment that can be seen during Oregon Field Guide’s 2021 fall season.

“We couldn’t be more excited by the progress we’re making and the exposure we’re receiving,” said Babb. “We definitely had to make some adjustments to our business plan during the pandemic, as most businesses did. But people are craving health and rejuvenation in wild places more than ever. And we are ready to help them get there.”

Just two AdvenChairs are still available for immediate purchase.

About AdvenChair:

AdvenChair is an all-terrain wheelchair designed for people with mobility challenges who want to venture off the beaten path and experience the grandeur of the wilderness. It is the brainchild of Geoff Babb, a fire ecologist and avid outdoorsman from Bend, Oregon, who loved to ski, mountain bike, and backpack with his wife and twin boys until a near-fatal brain stem stroke on November 10, 2005, forced him to use a wheelchair.

While the stroke forever changed his ability to move, Babb soon discovered that the biggest obstacle to experiencing a simple outing on local trails with his family again was not so much his body, but the frailties of common wheelchairs. Rather than lobbying for wheelchair-accessible wilderness trails, Babb chose to develop a wheelchair capable of adapting to the trails, and the AdvenChair was born.

On November 10, 2017, exactly 12 years to the day after his stroke, Babb survived a second brain stem stroke, which was a major setback. Yet it made him more determined than ever to share his all-terrain chair with other people with limited mobility.

While developing the first AdvenChair, Babb also launched The Onward Project, LLC, to inspire, encourage and enable outdoor adventures for people of all abilities, and invites them to share their experiences and stories online.

Revolutionary all-terrain wheelchair passes first trail test with flying colors.

Geoff Babb with his wife Yvonne on Geoff’s first venture onto Central Oregon Trails | photo by Michelle Simmons.

The AdvenChair, a new all-terrain wheelchair developed entirely in Bend, Oregon, left its first tire tracks on local trails this month. Now, the company founded by fire ecologist Geoff Babb faces the challenge of making the product gain traction with the millions of people throughout the country who use wheelchairs, and are typically left stranded at the trailhead when friends and family want to go for a hike.

Since surviving a life-threatening brain stem stroke in 2005, Babb has relied on a highly modified wheelchair with mountain bike tires and handlebar brakes to get off the beaten path. His original primitive version of the “AdvenChair” served him well until he and a team of a dozen friends attempted to reach the bottom of the Grand Canyon via the rugged Bright Angel Trail in 2016. The hundreds of water bars on the trail completely destroyed the bearings on the chair within the first two miles.

The team somehow managed to get Babb back up to the rim safely and he soon went back to the drawing board with his design crew – helicopter mechanic Dale Neubauer and CAD designer Jack Arnold – to create a whole new chair made with high-grade aluminum framing, a seat that adjusts to children as well as adults, adjustable handlebars, beefy 27.5” tires and durable mountain bike components. Unlike other wheelchairs, the human-powered AdvenChair is designed to be efficiently and comfortably pushed by one person or towed by two to four people.

When Babb’s crew began assembling the new AdvenChair 2.0 at Neubauer’s HeliLadder shop on an early December afternoon, it was like Christmas had come early. Not even sub-freezing temperatures could keep Geoff and his wife Yvonne from taking it out for a test ride.

“We are extremely excited about having the first working prototype out of the shop and on the trail,” said Geoff. “We found some things to fix, but overall I’m quite pleased with the prototyping process at this point, as our concept is now a reality.”

Geoff’s wife Yvonne, who typically does most of the AdvenChair driving, concurs: “The difference between the AdvenChair 2.0 and the original version is like night and day,” she says. “It’s much more agile, yet extremely solid.”

With more than three million wheelchair users in the United States alone, Geoff Babb is anxious to offer the new AdvenChair to the public in 2019 through his company’s website advenchair.com. But he knows they still have their work cut out for them before that can happen.

“To thoroughly test the AdvenChair, we need at least four prototypes with different combinations of components – wheelsets, tires and seats – including one for children,” Babb says. “And at a cost of $7,000 each, we still have a lot of fundraising to do before that.” AdvenChair is on its last few days of crowdfunding on IndieGoGo and has received some substantial private donations. The goal is to reach at least $50,000 December 19.

“As someone who has experienced the soul-restoring healing power of many adventures into the wilderness with my family and friends, I know the AdvenChair will do wonders for the physical and mental health of others like me,” says Babb. “It’s great to have the first step of our journey behind us. Now we need to keep the momentum rolling.”

About the AdvenChair:

The AdvenChair is an all-terrain wheelchair designed for people with mobility challenges who want to venture off the beaten path and experience the grandeur of the wilderness. It is the brainchild of Geoff Babb, a fire ecologist and avid outdoorsman from Bend, Oregon, who loved to ski, mountain bike and backpack with his wife and twin boys until a near-fatal brain stem stroke on November 10, 2005 forced him to use a wheelchair.

While the stroke forever changed his ability to move, Babb soon discovered that the biggest obstacle to experiencing a simple outing on local trails with his family again was not so much his body, but the frailties of common wheelchairs. Rather than lobbying for wheelchair-accessible wilderness trails, Babb chose to develop a wheelchair capable of adapting to the trails, and the AdvenChair was born.

On November 10, 2017, exactly 12 years to the day after his stroke, Babb survived a second brain stem stroke, which forced him to learn how to swallow and eat solid foods all over again. Yet it made him more determined than ever to share his all- terrain chair with other people with disabilities or limited mobility.

While developing the first AdvenChair, Babb also launched The Onward Project, LLC, to inspire, encourage and enable outdoor adventures for people of all abilities, and invites them to share their experiences and stories online.

AdvenChair rolls out IndieGoGo campaign to help fund revolutionary all-terrain wheelchair.

Geoff Babb with his wife Yvonne driving the original AdvenChair with friends on a recent outing in Shevlin Park

Life could be getting a lot more exciting for people with disabilities who want to venture off the beaten path and experience the grandeur of the wilderness. The Onward Project has just launched an IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign to support a new version of the AdvenChair, a one-of-a-kind wheelchair designed to boldly go where no chair has gone before.

Thirteen years ago, Geoff Babb was a fire ecologist and an avid outdoorsman in Bend, Oregon. He loved to ski, mountain bike and backpack with his wife Yvonne and twin 12-year-oldboys. That is, until November 10, 2005, when he had a near-fatal brain stem stroke. He needed two months in the rehabilitation unit at St. Charles Medical Center before he returned home in a wheelchair with only limited use of one hand. And not much else.

While the stroke forever changed his ability to move, Babb refused to let his condition inhibit his love for the outdoors. He soon took to adaptive horseback riding through Healing Reins and sit-skiing with Oregon Adaptive Sports.

“Unfortunately,” says Babb, “when I wanted to go for an outing with my family in the mountains or along the river, I discovered that the biggest obstacle to experiencing the trails with my family again was not so much my body, but my wheelchair. There was simply nothing out there that could easily and effectively get us off of a paved path, let alone a gravel one.”

With the help of his friend, helicopter mechanic Dale Neubauer, Babb set out to modify a wheelchair with mountain bike tires, a detachable front wheel, a rear handle bar with dual disc brakes, and a harness that would allow a small team to push, pull and guide him up and down steep terrain.

“We took that thing all over Central Oregon – Pilot Butte, the Deschutes River Trail, Smith Rock State Park, Mt. Bachelor, Crater Lake – you name it,” said Geoff’s wife Yvonne. “We had such great adventures, Geoff started calling it his ‘AdvenChair’.”

Eventually, in September 2016, it was time to put the AdvenChair to a serious test – a trip to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. With Yvonne, his sons (age 23 at the time) and 10 other team members, the group began their descent to the Colorado River on the Bright Angel Trail. However, the journey proved to be much rougher than they anticipated.

“It’s a trail with over 3,000 water bars and a bunch of switchbacks,” explains Babb. “Less than two miles down, the bearings were completely destroyed. The pounding of the wheels going over the edge of the water bars was just too much.”

Thankfully, the crew was able to lift Babb and his chair back to the rim of the Canyon. Not to be deterred, Babb’s relentless optimism and determination took over almost immediately. Soon he, Neubauer and his friend mechanical engineer Jack Arnold, were working on the next generation of the AdvenChair.

“The Grand Canyon failure was the best thing that ever happened,” said Babb. “The trail may have broken the chair, but it only strengthened our resolve as a team.”

This time, the team decided to scrap their Frankenstein version of a wheelchair altogether and start from the ground up. Their ideas blended into a whole new chair made with high-grade aluminum mountain bike components, an adjustable handlebar with disk brakes, an adjustable seat, larger 27.5” mountain bike wheels and a detachable, pivoting 16” wheel in front.

AdvenChair 2.0 was developing nicely last year when Babb’s life took another abrupt turn. On November 10, 2017 – exactly 12 years to the day after his first stroke – Babb had asecond one.

“The chances of surviving a brain stem stroke are about 10%,” says Yvonne Babb. “I knew getting him back from another one at age 60 would be nothing short of miraculous. But he looked at me from his hospital bed the next day and confidently murmured, ‘Not our first rodeo.’”

Despite doctor’s predictions, Geoff Babb relearned how to swallow and eat solid food all over again. Earlier this year, he emerged more determined than ever to bring the AdvenChair 2.0 to reality; not just for himself, but for the millions of people around the world who suffer from limited mobility, and even more limited one-dimensional chairs.

The new AdvenChair, which is currently under construction with parts made locally by ISCO Manufacturing Solutions, can accommodate a small child or an adult up to a 250-lbs. Weighing less than 55 lbs. with the wheels removed, it can easily be transported in the backseat or trunk of a car, and can be driven on gentle terrain by only one person. To negotiate more rugged trails with tighter turns, a team of three or four is needed to help pull and brake. But that just makes the outing more fun.

Following a rousing Rollout Party at Deschutes Brewery on November 9, the AdvenChair launched its IndieGoGo campaign on, you guessed it, November 10. The campaign hopes to raise $100,000 to cover marketing and production costs for five prototype chairs that will be tested extensively during the spring and summer of 2019. Following the prototype research, Babb plans to begin selling AdvenChairs to the public through the company website: advenchair.com.

“I’m looking forward to putting it through its test,” says Kirk Petersen, a fellow Oregon Adaptive Sports skier who is paralyzed from the waist down. “The chair is going to do wonders for getting people like myself to places where we want to be. We don’t want to be stuck in the house watching TV. We want to be doing the same stuff everyone else wants to be doing outside. We just need a little help.”

Babb also needs a little help with funding to reach his goal of having his chairs in widespread use throughout the planet within the next five years.

“We know there are more than three and a half million wheelchair users around the world,” he says. “And we know that having access to nature and solitude does wonders for the mind and body.”

With funding, Babb hopes to have many of those people sharing their adventure stories and inspiring messages through his website.

“To me,” he says with a smile, “that would be a gift to the greater community.”

To help the AdvenChair move onward and upward, search “AdvenChair” at Indiegogo.com. (NOTE: THIS CAMPAIGN HAS ENDED—PLEASE DONATE THROUGH THIS LINK)

About The Onward Project

The Onward Project, LLC inspires, encourages and enables outdoor adventures for people of all abilities, and invites them to share their experiences and stories online.