My friend Kris is disabled. Wear and tear on his knees from years of working as a gardener have left them painful to walk on - to the point that even a short walk is very painful for him.
His kneecaps do not track correctly, and unfortunately the corrective surgery performed a few years ago did not work and the screws put in his knees tore out, leaving him in a worse state than before.

I'm an avid cyclist myself, and Kris used to cycle regularly before his knees deteriorated.
Since meeting me, he's got the urge to begin cycling again, but unfortunately due to the state of his knees he cannot pedal a regular bicycle. I took him on a cycling trip recently, but had to use a trailer cycle - something like the back end of a trike, but the front end attaches to the seatpost of a regular bike. It's quite hard to cycle with this being towed on the back, and was the only option since a tandem has pedals that rotate at the rear and so keeping his legs still was not an option.

I'd seen someone at the cannop cycle centre once with a hand-driven bike that was actually an attachment that fitted onto the front of a rigid wheelchair. We took a trip to the cycle show at the NEC in birmingham this year (2011) to see what was available in the way of hand-driven disabled trikes, and found a couple of suitable models.

Being disabled and therefore on disability benefit with no other income, there aren't the funds available to buy one - but Quest88's staff at the show suggested that funding might be available from various charities so he's applied for funding through a couple of local charities. The trike pictured above costs £1200, but being disabled, Kris can purchase it without the VAT. Bulmer's cider has offered to give a few hundred pounds towards it, and it's also a possibility that another charity may front another couple of hundred - unfortunately he still needs to find another £300 or so, so I'm appealing for small donations to try to raise the rest.

The details of the hand-cycle can be found here at Mission Cycles

I took a few videos of Kris trying out the Pacific Handy disabled hand cycle at the NEC and posted them on Youtube. As you can imagine, it would be fantastic if we can raise the rest of the money for him so that he can get out and about in the Forest of Dean.

Donations of any amount are very gratefully received. Please click the Paypal button below if you'd like to contribute.

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