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Descending the Grand Canyon in a Wheelchair
The old adage, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” rings loud and true for Geoff Babb and his team at AdvenChair. In 2005 Babb was a Bureau of Land Management Fire Ecologist and an active outdoorsman, until a near-fatal brain stem stroke changed his access to the great outdoors.
BY CHRIS FOX
The old adage, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” rings loud and true for Geoff Babb and his team at AdvenChair. In 2005 Babb was a Bureau of Land Management Fire Ecologist and an active outdoorsman, until a near-fatal brain stem stroke changed his access to the great outdoors.
The stroke left Babb in a wheelchair and with only limited use of one hand. Mountain trails and ski slopes are generally not wheelchair accessible. In fact, he quickly realized that his access to the outdoors was limited less by his body and more by his rigid wheelchair.
“I had this need to be back out on the trail after my stroke, and I knew it was going to have to be something different,” Babb explains. He began to explore the world of off-road wheelchair1, but he quickly found that the equipment required a person to have arm strength. With limited use in only one hand, none of the off-road wheelchairs on the market would cut it.
“I just started experimenting with a friend of mine, Dale Neubauer, who is a helicopter mechanic. He helped me create some parts for my existing chair to go off-road, and I started to realize what was possible. After that, it just evolved… one thing led to another,” Babb says.
Building a Wheelchair from Scratch
CAD drawing of the AdvenChair, all-terrain wheelchair
Babb’s first iteration of the AdvenChair was a modified version of a wheelchair. Adding beefier tires, a detachable front wheel, handbrakes on the handlebar and a harness made it so he could truly take to the trail with the help of a team to propel the chair.
In fact, they decided to take on the Grand Canyon. According to the AdvenChair team, “After bumping and grinding over countless water barriers on the Bright Angel Trail, the chair succumbed to a broken axle less than two miles down.”
The team managed to get Babb back to the rim, but it was apparent that a modified wheelchair just wasn’t going to be enough. “That failure led us to look at doing a chair that was going to meet our needs. If we hadn’t broken down, we might still be on the track of modifying an existing wheelchair, rather than creating something from scratch. That’s when Jack Arnold came into the picture,” Babb says.
With a background that started as a machinist and progressed to manufacturing engineering and eventually product development engineering, Arnold jumped on the opportunity to put his skills to good use.
“We were looking to design an off-road wheelchair from scratch, based on using mountain bike parts instead of wheelchair parts,” Arnold explains. “Wheelchair parts are generally more expensive because of the medical tag that goes with them, and they aren’t necessarily very robust. Mountain bike parts, on the other hand, are very robust and readily available. So, it was really an intriguing project.”
His work started at the heart of the whole system: the frame. Arnold found a good balance between rigidity and weight with a tubular aluminum design. It was similar to bicycle frames, so he wouldn’t have to start completely from scratch.
“I went out on GrabCAD and found a pretty good complete mountain bike assembly, available for free. I downloaded that, and used a lot of the parts from that model—the wheels, the disk brakes, the calipers, handlebars… I started borrowing parts from it, and that jump-started the design process.” [Ed. Note: model used was Freeride MTB, submitted by Joris Deschamps]
Because their design was meant for folks riding in a wheelchair, Arnold wanted to make sure the design would hold up to the stresses of both a rider and the environment.
Simulation shows maximum deflection with a 250 lb rider and a factor of three to account for dynamic loads and provide a factor of safety.
“Before I met up with the rest of the team to present my models, I wanted to do some stress testing on the frame. So, I ran some FEA simulations in SOLIDWORKS. Assuming a rider weight of 250 lbs and a factor of three to account for dynamic loads and still provide a factor of safety, I used a 750 lbs static load for the structural analysis. After a couple of tweaks, I got it to where it looked like we could make it work,” Arnold says.
With the CAD on a projector, Arnold went through the design, piece by piece, and got feedback from Babb and the rest of the team. Through several iterations, they have changed a number of things from the original GrabCAD components. For some of the off-the-shelf components, Arnold and Babb established a partnership with SRAM, a bicycle component company. “They were able to provide us with 3D CAD files of a couple of the components that we didn’t have. So, we tried to standardize our design to use SRAM components as much as possible because they’re helping us and they are very durable components,” Arnold says.
Designing for Ruggedness and Accessibility
When Arnold was building out his design in SOLIDWORKS, he took a number of factors into consideration, including a need to make the AdvenChair both rugged and light. With his background in mechanical engineering spawning from work as a machinist, Arnold knew that how the chair was made would make a difference. “I went in thinking about manufacturing,” he says. “I went in knowing what tube radius we should use, and what machining processes would be needed for the parts we were making. I kept all of our machined components simple enough for three-axis machining.”
Beyond just considering the manufacturing processes, Arnold used lots of finite element analysis (FEA) to test the design before they ever took to making physical prototypes. AdvenChair is even part of a startup program with Ansys. “With Ansys Discovery, I noticed that I was able to solve finite element analysis studies almost instantaneously while in the ‘Explore’ mode,” Arnold says.
Arnold explains that he has been a SOLIDWORKS user since 1998, so he is quite committed to the CAD program as he knows all the ins and outs by now. “Also, for producing all of the manufacturing documentation, all of the black line drawings… SOLIDWORKS works really well.” While Arnold uses the FEA in SOLIDWORKS, he is also becoming a big fan of Ansys Discovery to do more and more of his analysis work. “I used Ansys Discovery to compare the structural analysis results of the frame to the same studies I had run in SOLIDWORKS Simulation with the same exact boundary conditions… It was like having a third-party peer review of our initial stress analysis.”
He also used a more cutting-edge element of the Ansys program: generative design. To experiment, Arnold took one of the axle dropouts and ran it through the generative process. “You apply loads and constraints to the part just like any FEA, then set goals. My goal was to reduce the part weight by 40 percent. When you hit the ‘solve’ button, the program goes to work doing iterative solutions, removing material from the low stress areas on every iteration until your goals are met.”
Optimized axle geometry inspired by generative design led to a 42 percent reduction in weight of the axle bearing.
“After several iterations, you start coming up with this organic part design,” Arnold continues. “5-axis machining was not an option, not in any cost-effective way. Maybe with investment casting or molding, generative design might be worth it. But I took inspiration from the geometry that generative design created. I reworked the part geometry in SOLIDWORKS, thinning the web and adding some ribs, all while keeping the part geometry simple enough for 3-axis CNC machining. I ended up with a 42 percent reduction in weight compared to the original part’s geometry.”
Leveraging the software to go through design changes, Arnold found that things moved faster because the Ansys software didn’t require re-meshing of the entire model after geometry changes.
“While in the ‘Explore’ mode, Ansys Discovery leverages the GPUs in your graphics card which is simply brilliant! The ‘Explore’ mode is the ultimate sandbox for every design engineer. Using the ‘Design’ mode, you can quickly change your CAD geometry, then pop back into the ‘Explore’ mode and solve your analysis study without the need to mesh and re-mesh your model each time, letting you know if you are on the right path. I can solve iterations of my designs 10 times quicker in the ‘Explore’ mode than with traditional FEA process. Once I have refined my design, I pop into the ‘Finalize’ mode and use a traditional Ansys Mechanical solver to mesh and run my final study,” Arnold explains.
This process of design, test, repeat is key to how the AdvenChair is going through continuous improvement—even after their product hits the market.
A Whole New Market
According to Arnold, one of the challenges with designing an off-road wheelchair is that there are no industry standards. Combining elements from both the rugged bicycle world and the medical industry created design challenges, but also opened them up to who might use this product.
“I think the awareness of the need for this type of product has increased since we started working on AdvenChair,” explains Babb. “There are a number of older people with Parkinson’s who wanted to go back out on their favorite bike trail or go to their favorite fishing spot again.” Babb and Arnold have been looking at a number of different areas that can utilize variations of their wheelchair design, including for students to get outside with their classmates and on cruise ships to help people embark on beaches.
Babb says, “The origin of the AdvenChair is ‘adventure wheelchair.’ Originally, we envisioned something that was going to be useful in both the backcountry, as well as in town. Initially we planned for it to be lighter, but to make it useful in the backcountry it needed to be more tough than light. The next iteration will definitely be lighter but we’re also considering developing something that will be light-duty—an ‘urban version.’”
Babb and Arnold are excited about the future of AdvenChair, as they prepare for the delivery of their first production run next year. “We’re just motivated by people wanting to have experiences outdoors,” Babb says.
They plan to have more iterations before each production run, but for now they’re looking forward to learning more about how folks can use their invention.
For more on SOLIDWORKS, check out the whitepaper Simulating for Better Health.
Author note: An offroad wheelchair from Icon has been covered in EngineersRule.com here Three Wheels, 3,000 Watts and an Ingenious Designer in a Dec 29, 2017 article. The AdvenChair was meant to be more rugged and light than the motorized Icon Explore wheelchair with its stainless steel frame. The AdvenChair is modular and can be used as a regular wheelchair or put into “off-road mode” by adding the third wheel whereas the Explore has a specific use case. The heavier Icon wheelchair will be used for motorized hiking and biking, while the lighter AdvenChair is adaptable for everyday use.
Blogpost: AdvenChair Rolls Boldly Into Adventure With Off-Road Wheelchair Design
Geoff Babb is an outdoor adventurer. He has enjoyed mountain biking, skiing and hiking in rugged terrain with friends over the years. He wasn’t about to let a stroke in 2005 stop him from enjoying his passions, or even a second stroke 12 years later.
The Ansys Startup Program celebrates helping more than 1000 companies.
Geoff Babb is an outdoor adventurer. He has enjoyed mountain biking, skiing and hiking in rugged terrain with friends over the years. He wasn’t about to let a stroke in 2005 stop him from enjoying his passions, or even a second stroke 12 years later. By then he was the founder of a company called The Onward Project, maker of the AdvenChair, dedicated to inspiring and enabling those with mobility challenges to visit wild places. The company’s motto: Roll Boldly.
Geoff Babb, inventor of the AdvenChair, and family after his first brain-stem stroke
You can see Geoff doing just that in a YouTube video featuring him in a prototype of the AdvenChair in the woods, on the beach and in the snow, accompanied by a group of friends who push and pull the AdvenChair using a set of handlebars in back and ropes in front.
“We’re sometimes asked about an electric-assist version, but honestly we're not really thinking about it at this stage, primarily because we see the group dynamics of teamwork as a key tenet of the AdvenChair,” Babb says. "AdvenChairing is a team sport.”
On the Road to an Off-Road Wheelchair Design
When the idea of hiking in a wheelchair came to him in 2006, it quickly became apparent that the standard wheelchair, designed for floors in buildings and paved roads outside, was not up to the challenge of more rugged surfaces.
“I wanted to make a chair that would benefit not only me but so many people who want to be outside,” Geoff says. “We tinkered with a standard wheelchair but that didn't work.” The stresses and strains on the chair would be too great, and the jolts experienced by the rider too jarring.
The AdvenChair 1.0 early all-terrain wheelchair prototype at the Grand Canyon. Photo credit: Pat Addabbo
So Geoff turned to his mountain biking experience and began developing ideas for what would become the AdvenChair. It would be a three-wheeler — two large wheels in back for strength and stability and a smaller wheel out front for balance and maneuverability. It would incorporate the materials and components of a mountain bike that suit the terrain, including inner tire suspension, disc brakes and a lightweight but strong frame.
In 2017 Jack Arnold, an engineer with experience in product development, sheet metal and machinery, joined Geoff’s group. Together they decided it was time to scrap the early designs and build something new from the ground up.
Engineering a New Wheelchair Design
Jack brought an engineer’s knowledge of simulation to the group. Before the first design review meeting, he used an engineering software package to simulate the stresses and strains on a prototype design that could hold a 250-pound rider with a safety factor of 3, for a total load of 750 pounds. He knew they wouldn’t end up building this design, but he wanted to get the ideas flowing, and to let the team know that this was going to be an iterative process.
Left to Right: Dale Neubauer, Geoff and Yvonne Babb and Jack Arnold
“I wanted to go into the meeting with the ‘warm and fuzzy’ feeling of knowing that the structure was sound from the start,” Jack says. “You really need to use simulation upfront so you know that your first prototype is at least in the ballpark.”
A fortunate series of events brought Ansys simulations into the picture. In 2018, a reporter at a local radio station did a story on Geoff and the AdvenChair team. “After that story aired, we had a number of people reach out to us to provide service, and Ansys was one of them,” Geoff says. “Next thing I knew Ansys was offering to help us with the analysis. I asked Jack what he thought and he said we definitely should follow up on that.”
A structural analysis of the AdvenChair frame in Ansys Discovery
Soon Jack was working with Ansys Discovery as part of the Ansys Startup Program to verify the frame simulation he had done with the other software package. He ran several different simulations with the seat in different positions and with different loadings to see how these changes affected the frame.
“I quickly learned that it was so much easier to make design tweaks in Discovery in Explore mode and get a solution almost instantly to see that you are trending in the right direction,” Jack says. “I really love the brilliant use of onboard memory on video cards to make nearly instant updates possible.”
The Advenchair all terrain wheelchair is equipped with various adjustment mechanisms to accommodate riders of varying sizes and weights.
But what he loves the most about Discovery is the generative design feature. “Watching it iterate, removing material in the unstressed areas and then suggesting a final shape —that is really cool,” Jack says. “Our current AdvenChair is heavier than our design goal, so we are going to use generative design to eliminate material where it’s not needed. That will reduce the weight and translate into material and cost savings as well.”
Heading to Market
Somewhere along the way the team came up with what Geoff calls the “Swiss Army Knife” approach. This meant adding adjustability and scalability to the AdvenChair, so it could be used throughout a person’s lifetime for various purposes. An important feature of this approach is that the front wheel is removable so the AdvenChair can be used as a standard wheelchair to go into buildings, fit under tables and allow transfers in and out of vehicles.
Much of what Jack and the design team have been doing these last two years has been working on the adjustability of components. They want the rider to be able to adjust the seat position fore and aft, to adjust the inclination angle of the seat, and to set the footrest in the most comfortable position. Moving these components around in Discovery and seeing how they change the loads on the chair and its performance was easy.
Isaac Shannon takes to the trails, thanks to the off road hiking wheelchair, AdvenChair.
“With Discovery, we've designed a scalable platform that can handle anyone from a small child to an adult,” Jack says. “This includes three different seat bucket sizes that can be swapped out when needed. The idea is that a family can buy this for a child and it can be a lifetime chair for them.”
In the bigger scheme of things, Geoff sees the AdvenChair as a way of helping people of all ages with different abilities enjoy the outdoors again.
“We want to reach out to veterans to get their buddies out on the trail using teamwork,” he says. “Children with cerebral palsy. Elderly folks who just can't easily hike anymore and people with Parkinson's disease who want to visit their favorite lake again.” He talks about how he received a call from a man a few weeks ago whose daughter was in hospice and wanted to revisit her favorite spots on the family farm one last time. He loaned them an AdvenChair and she got her wish, a week before she passed.
In this way and many others, the AdvenChair team is already fulfilling its dream of helping people who love the wild outdoors to hit the trails throughout their lifetimes, no matter what challenges life throws at them. They are currently taking orders until Feb. 15, 2021 for the first production run of AdvenChairs, with plans to ship their first 10 units in the second quarter of 2021. In the meantime, they are continuing to use Ansys Discovery to reduce the overall weight of the AdvenChair, particularly in the seat, and are developing a lighter-duty, less expensive urban version, for those who find the city wild enough.
Download a free trial of Discovery to see how it can accelerate your design process.
Video: AdvenChair design team partners with Ansys to reduce weight and cut costs.
Inspired by Emily Cureton’s story about AdvenChair for National Public Radio last December, Ansys, a global leader in engineering design technology, reached out and offered their help and expertise. By joining the Ansys Startup Program, we were able to utilize their Discovery design simulation software in the development process, which enabled us to better understand the effect of our design decisions and make adjustments during our prototype testing.
Geoff Babb (seated) on the Rim Rock Trail in the AdvenChair at Smith Rock State Park, Oregon
PRODUCED BY ANSYS IN COLLABORATION
WITH THE ONWARD PROJECT LLC
Inspired by Emily Cureton’s story about AdvenChair for National Public Radio last December, Ansys, a global leader in engineering design technology, reached out and offered their help and expertise. By joining the Ansys Startup Program, we were able to utilize their Discovery design simulation software in the development process, which enabled us to better understand the effect of our design decisions and make adjustments during our prototype testing.
We also had the pleasure of working with Curt Chan and Adam Morley on a video that illustrates how both teams benefitted from the partnership. It’s an incredible piece of work and we hope you will enjoy it. Thank you, Ansys!
Video: Hiking Wheelchair Opens Outdoor Lifestyle to People Living with Physical Disabilities
It’s a crisp September morning. A good time to go for a hike. For 21-year-old Isaac Shannon, that means strapping into the AdvenChair.
“I’m in a wheelchair because I have a mitochondrial disease, which is a progressive genetic disorder that affects pretty much everything in my body and makes me extremely tired and fatigued easily,” Shannon said.
For the majority of his life, Shannon hasn’t been able to go on hikes. This is now his fourth time using the AdvenChair.
Issac Shannon (seated) tries out the AdvenChair in Bend, Oregon
FEATURED ON THE DENVER CHANNEL
by Elizabeth Ruiz
E.W. Scripps Company National News
It’s a crisp September morning. A good time to go for a hike. For 21-year-old Isaac Shannon, that means strapping into the AdvenChair.
“I’m in a wheelchair because I have a mitochondrial disease, which is a progressive genetic disorder that affects pretty much everything in my body and makes me extremely tired and fatigued easily,” Shannon said.
For the majority of his life, Shannon hasn’t been able to go on hikes. This is now his fourth time using the AdvenChair.
“It’s rejuvenating to be outside, especially as a person with a disability because these resources are not exactly the most accessible,” Shannon said. “So when there is a tool that allows a person to be able to experience life in the most average way possible, I think it’s healing, and it’s nice to be out in nature where you’re not around people.”
The AdvenChair is an adaptive, human-powered wheelchair designed to help people with physical disabilities get outside. Jack Arnold is the engineer who helped develop the chair.
“It’s an all-terrain wheelchair. With a small team of people, you can go backpacking,” Arnold said.
One person pushes from behind, and another – adequately referred to as a mule -- pulls from the front. Up to five people can help remove the chair with nylon straps and carabiners on more challenging trails.
“There are so many people with physical challenges out there in the world,” Arnold said. “We take it for granted; we can get up and go for a hike. And everybody with physical challenges, they don’t want to be stuck indoors either. They want to get out.”
The man who inspired and created the idea of the AdvenChair, Geoff Babb, was supposed to be on the trail with us, but a medical emergency rushed him to the hospital instead. Geoff is no stranger to the hospital. This visit is due to a complication with a pump in his abdomen that helps control muscle spasms. But as he puts it, it’s not his first rodeo.
“I had my first stroke on November 10th, 2005,” Geoff said.
Twelve years later, on the same date, Geoff had a second stroke. Now he lives with quadriparesis, which means he experiences weakness in all four limbs. His favorite medicine is nature.
“For me, to start to heal, I had to be in my place of comfort and strength, which was being outside,” Geoff said.
Outside is where he met his wife, Yvonne.
“I mean, we weren’t born outside, but we’re just outdoorsy people,” Yvonne said with a laugh.
Both worked as plant resource specialists. Geoff used to be a fire incident commander. As his primary caretaker, Yvonne’s life has been influenced by the AdvenChair as much as Geoff’s has.
“To me, it’s a safe way to go out to the woods with Jeff and continue our life in an adventurous way,” Yvonne said.
They can go on trips to the beach, or in the snow and trek through somewhat tricky trails.
“Takes five or six people we’re like ‘ohhh we can do this,’” Yvonne said.
Yvonne says Geoff is the most driven person she’s ever known. Geoff says his motivation is his desire to contribute to the world positively.
“I have a purpose when I get up, and that purpose is to help people experience wild places eventually,” Geoff said.
It’s a goal he’s already achieved on a small scale with other friends in Oregon.
“I think this is one of the coolest things that I’ve gotten to experience in my life because I’ve been able to hike again without feeling tired or having any pain,” Shannon said.
Geoff hopes to continue his legacy allowing more people to hike outside.
“I want to be able to see other people in his chair… on the Camino, or climbing the Great Wall of China,” Yvonne said.
No matter what life throws at him, Geoff says he will continue rolling boldly off the beaten path.
Copyright 2020 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
The Evolution of an Adventure Wheelchair
The road to building a good all-terrain wheelchair is littered with broken axles, gravel road rash, and uncomfortable ergonomics; just ask Geoff Babb. “The most significant mishaps are also the best things that could happen during development,” he says. An inventor on the cutting edge of wheelchair technology, Babb is the creator of the AdvenChair, a rugged, outdoor-friendly roller that uses bi-ski and mountain-bike technology to enable people with mobility issues and their gang of helpers to navigate rocky, steep trails. (It can also be operated solely by the chair’s user for short distances.)
Geoff Babb (seated) at Smith Rock State Park, Oregon (Photo: SmithRock.com)
FEATURED IN OUTSIDE ONLINE
by Emily Penningon
AdvenChair 2.0, coming out late this year, will allow more people to experience more wilderness
The road to building a good all-terrain wheelchair is littered with broken axles, gravel road rash, and uncomfortable ergonomics; just ask Geoff Babb. “The most significant mishaps are also the best things that could happen during development,” he says. An inventor on the cutting edge of wheelchair technology, Babb is the creator of the AdvenChair, a rugged, outdoor-friendly roller that uses bi-ski and mountain-bike technology to enable people with mobility issues and their gang of helpers to navigate rocky, steep trails. (It can also be operated solely by the chair’s user for short distances.)
A lifelong outdoor enthusiast and BLM fire ecologist, Babb loved backpacking, climbing, and mountain biking near his hometown of Bend, Oregon, until his life took an abrupt turn when he suffered a near fatal brain-stem stroke at age 48. “While I was in rehab, it became obvious that I wasn’t going to walk and that I would be in a wheelchair,” he says. Getting back outdoors was a top priority for him, his wife, Yvonne, and their two boys, but none of the chairs they saw on the market fit the bill.
Without enough arm strength to push himself, he accumulated a laundry list of solutions that would allow helpers to aid him in an ergonomic way. “We also needed parts that were easily accessible, versatility to maneuver outdoors and indoors, and a chair that was durable enough to go on rougher or steeper trails,” Babb says. Nothing checked off all the boxes, so they developed a solution on their own.
The AdvenChair 1.0 was little more than a standard-issue wheelchair with knobby tires (instead of thinner, pavement-friendly ones) and an added front wheel for increased mobility when rolling over curbs and rocks. After testing the chair on trails all over Smith Rock State Park, Crater Lake, and Mount Rainier, Babb and his family decided to put it through the ringer on a 2016 trip to Grand Canyon National Park.
With a team of three to four people (lovingly referred to as “mules”) helping push and pull the chair, they set off from the Bright Angel Trailhead on the Grand Canyon’s South Rim, carefully navigating the wheels over hundreds of bumps and drainage channels.
Just two miles from the trailhead, an axle snapped. Babb and his team were forced to retreat back to the parking lot. “I see this mishap as a gift, as it forced us to rethink our design,” he says. “Within a week, we were back in my garage finding new ways to make it better.”
Babb and his team navigating a descent at Smith Rock (Photo: SmithRock.com)
Enter the AdvenChair 2.0, Babb’s latest creation. With the help of helicopter mechanic Dave Neubauer, CAD designer Jack Arnold, and Yvonne’s steering and ergonomic expertise, Babb fully redesigned his initial concept.
“The frame of the AdvenChair 2.0 is more durable and capable of overcoming obstacles like logs, stream crossings, rocks, and roots,” Babb says. The team worked to make the 20-inch front wheel more all-terrain friendly, with an added shock and included ease-of-use features like 180-millimeter disk-brake rotors, handlebar-mounted brakes, and a durable 6061 T6 aluminum frame with lifting and towing points for the chair’s pushers and pullers. The new model weighs 60 pounds and can fit into the back seat of most sedans once the front wheel is removed. “AdvenChair 2.0 is the whole enchilada,” Babb says.
This foray into the world of all-terrain wheelchairs is not without competition. From the tanklike, motorized Action Trackchair ($12,000) to the sporty, push-powered Grit Freedom Chair ($3,000) and the popular Freewheel ($600), people with disabilities have more options than ever when it comes to choosing an adventure-ready rig.
What really sets the AdvenChair apart, however, is its combined use of bi-ski and mountain-bike technology, which allows a team of one to four pushers and pullers to maneuver the chair across the toughest trails out there with little to no help from the rider. There are 16 points on the chair to push, pull, or lift. Babb adopted the waist belt and fiberglass towing poles often used on a pulk sled so that a friend can help pull the chair from the front, while another helper can use the adjustable, wide handlebars to push the chair and access the disc brakes from the back.
Much of the chair is constructed with standard-issue bike parts, like grippy 27.5-inch wheels and tires, allowing users to repair and maintain the chair themselves. Not a do-it-yourselfer? Just bring the chair into your local bike shop for a tune-up. Its padded bucket seat is also easily removed, a boon for a child user, who can grow with the AdvenChair and only ever need to purchase a new, larger seat to be fitted on the chair, greatly extending its life span.
AdvenChair will begin taking orders late this year, shipping the first units next year for a cost of about $10,000 per chair. After that, Babb has a Grand Canyon redux planned, and with the 2.0’s robust new features, I’d say the odds are with him.
“We believe that everyone, regardless of physical ability, should have the opportunity to visit wild places,” Babb says. “Instead of needing a landscape that’s been adapted to wheelchairs, people can now have a chair that adapts to the landscape.”