Motorcycles?! Wait! What? Yes, riding a motorcycle after spinal cord injury is possible. Paraplegics and Quadriplegics have found ways to head out onto the highway, feel the wind in their hair and and get bugs in their teeth. Okay, maybe not the bugs in their teeth thing. As long as you have strength in your arms you can find a way to get out on the open road. Some of the most amazing experiences and scariest times of my life have been riding a motorcycle. The risks are very real, but if you are willing to accept them, it truly is an incredible experience.

There are many ways to make this adventure accessible. It ain't cheap, but it's possible. The first thing you should consider before you start emptying you bank account is your tolerance for the changing weather. If you have trouble with extreme heat or cold, your time on the motorcycle will be limited. If you have issues with heat, remember that if you ride on the motorcycle you are essentially riding on a big heater. It's not that noticeable while you are riding, but when you stop the heat rises quickly and makes very uncomfortable. Heat stopped me from riding more than the cold. Keeping warm, at least for me, was easier than getting cool. When the weather is on the cool side, you will be amazed how quickly the wind can turn a nice, comfortable day into a miserable experience. This issue can be mitigated by clothing layers and a windshield or fairing on your chosen motorcycle.

The second consideration is your arm strength. The motorcycle is designed to be steered by leaning. Since most adaptions (except for the landing gear type) remove this ability, steering the motorcycle gets harder, especially when you are going slow. The are several ways to lighten the steering (leading link forks and modifying the motorcycle's triple tree) but they can be expensive options.

The final consideration is who will be doing this modifications. You are literally putting your life in their hands. There is no substitute for experience here. Look for someone who has made motorcycle modifications before (i.e. installing a sidecar or trike adaptions). Do your research. If you are going to attempt these mods yourself be really honest with yourself about your abilities. Things go wrong really fast on a motorcycle so don't take unnecessary risks. Also, riding a trike and a motorcycle with a sidecar safely is not easy at first. Have someone with extensive experience show you how. Each type of modification has it's quirks, so you must understand the limitations.

I am not trying to talk you out of this amazing adventure, but I simply want you to understand these important considerations before you start shelling out thousands of dollars.
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MOTORCYCLE ADAPTIONS

There are three main modifications that you will have to make to the motorcycle. They are stability, controls and wheelchair racks.

STABILITY

Let's start with the obvious. You first have to add some kind of supports to the motorcycle so when you are stopped it does not fall over. Seems logical, right? Well, not to some. The first time I took my motorcycle to work someone asked me "why the sidecar?". I just looked at them and said "so I don't fall over". They seems a bit embarrassed after that.

The three major adaptions are add a sidecar, make it a or buy a trike, or if you are really adventurous add electronic stabilizing arm (landing gear) that drop down when you are going to stop. Each of these have their pluses and minuses. It's all up to you to decide what you want and the risks you are willing to take.

Sidecars - Sidecars are my preferred option. Adding a sidecar handles two adaptions at once. You gain stability and a place to put your wheelchair. You also can bring along a friend. It is really the only options for quadriplegics, as well. Quadriplegics usually ride from the sidecar and generally roll into it via a drop down ramp. The motorcycle control are moved over to the sidecar, but I will get into this more later.

Paraplegics have a bit more choices to make. They can ride from the sidecar or transfer onto the motorcycle seat. If you are going to ride on the seat , as I did, I have a few recommendations. First, add floorboards with straps to secure your feet and make sure there is a barrier on the back of the floorboards to prevent you feet from sliding off the back. While riding the wind tends to move your legs around a bit. Secondly, I would suggest adding a quick release seatbelt. I would transfer onto the motorcycle seat, breakdown my chair and the store it in a rack between the motorcycle and the sidecar. The seatbelt helped keep me on the seat while doing the breakdown and loading process. It also helps with rider stability while traveling. The last thing you will need is a backrest for the seat. This is very important. Motorcycle generally have a great deal of torque, so when you accelerate the inertia pushes you back. If you are accelerating quickly (which we sometimes do) this can be dangerous. A friend of mine was riding her very expensive modified Harley trike for the first time and she did not have a backrest. She gave it too much throttle and was thrown back, which made her give it more throttle and turned her trike into a curb. Suffice it to say she had a very bad day and it took a few months of recovery to get back on the trike. Not to mention a few thousand dollars of repairs to the trike. But, she did get back on and rode that thing all over the United States.

In general I would recommend that you have the sidecar installed by a professional. How and where it's attached to the motorcycle is critical. If not properly done the sidecar could adversely affect how the rig rides and/or it could actually become disconnected from the motorcycle. I have heard of several instances of this actually happening. If you are determined to do it yourself, please do an internet search for the proper mounting procedure.

Many disabled motorcyclists have built the own sidecar, but if you are not so mechanically gifted there are several sidecar dealers in the United States. What sidecar you purchased is based on the weight of the motorcycle you have or that you are considering buying. In general, the lighter the motorcycle the lighter the sidecar. If the sidecar is too heavy it will put too much stress on the motorcycle and too light will make the sidecar rise off the ground if you make a right turn too fast. The sidecar dealer will help you decide which sidecar is best for you. You can also join a forum like the United Sidecar Association and ask questions. They also have a page for people selling their sidecar rigs.

Another thing to consider when building your sidecar rig is reverse gear. There are only a few motorcycle manufacturers you offer a bike with reverse gear. MotorTrike is a company the makes an aftermarket reverse gear, but it is only for certain Harley Davidson motorcycles. You don't absolutely need reverse gear, I rode a sidecar rig for 12 years without it. But, it will require you to really think where you are going. You don't want to get into a situation where you have to back up to get out.

Trikes - Trikes are great but it's s little more challenging to climb on and to add racks for your wheelchair. Not impossible but slightly more difficult. They are really not an option for quadriplegics. There are two main motorcycle manufacturers the make dedicated tribes: Harley Davidson and Can Am Spyder. The advantage of these two are they come stock with a reverse gear. The Spyder has a couple of advantages over the Harley. The Spyder has a semi-automatic transmission which removes one of the adaptation issues and it also has stability control to make your riding experience safer. They both can be quite pricey as well. There are several other companies that make trike conversions to most existing motorcycles. Again it's important that any conversions is preformed by a professional.

Landing Gear - If you are really adventurous and want the full riding experience, landing gear might be what you want. Landing gear are really not an option for quadriplegics. The landing gear system gives you stability when you are stopped and at slow speeds. When you start riding, you can press a button and the landing gear will rise allowing you to ride the motorcycle normally. When you are coming up to a stop sign, press the another button and the landing gear will lower. It is up to the rider to remember to raise and/or lower the landing gear. If you forget you're gonna have a really bad day. I have heard of one instances where the landing gear system failed. Fortunately for the rider of this particular motorcycle he was able to get a bystander to catch him as he was slowing down (it's a much longer story). Getting onto to the motorcycle is easier than a trike, but adding a rack for your wheelchair is just as difficult. There are several companies that make landing gears for motorcycles now. To find them just search "motorcycle landing gear".

ADAPTIONS

Once you have decided the best riding position for you, now we have to modify the motorcycle for hand controls. Some of the controls for a motorcycle are already on the handlebars. You have the throttle, front brake and the clutch. Basically, you now have to modify the shifter and the rear brake controls. There are some motorcycles out there that have semi-automatic shifting. There is no clutch and they already come with paddle shifters. Or you could use a scooter type motorcycle the has a completely automatic transmission, but the engine sizes are limited.

Shifter - Push button shifters come in two forms, electric and air shifters. We recommend the electric shifters because the air shifters add difficulty to your adaption. Air shifters have a small compressor or a compressed air canister to supply the shifter the air it needs to function. The adds more complexity the needed. Plus, some air shifters only allow you to shift up. There are two manufacturers of electric shifters, Kliktronic and Pingel. Both work essentially the same, you have two buttons to shift. One button shifts up and the other shifts down. Very simple operations, but installation can be tricky. Follow the supplied instructions to the letter or the shifter will not function correctly. I have only used the Kilktronic shifter. Once it's set up properly they are very robust and work great. This maybe true of the Pingel as well, but no one I know has ever used them.

Rear Brake - The rear brake on a normal motorcycle is a pedal on the right side. Hopefully the motorcycle you have chosen has a rear disc brake. With a rear disc brake you have several options for your adaptions. You can get a larger brake reservoir for your front brake and run a second line to your back brake. You may have to use a proportion valve to regulate the fluid going to the back brake. This is the method I used on my motorcycle but I didn't need a proportion valve because we used a steel brake line to the back brake. It worked great and I did not have any issues. There are some draws backs to this method though. If one of the line breaks the brake fluid will empty out and you will loose both brakes. It never happened to me but it doesn't mean it couldn't. The next option would be stacking two brake reservoirs and linking the two levers. I have seen this done and it works well, but it's very complicated. The last option is the K-lever2 from Kliktronic. This device works with a rear disc brake and a rear drum brake. It essentially stacks the front and rear levers above one another, but very close. For a rear disc brake system it gives you an extra reservoir making it very safe. For rear drum brake system it utilizes the cable from the standard rear drum brake. The K-lever2 we believe is the best option. It's expensive but it's well worth because of the safety factor.