Two top athletes who refused to be limited by their wheelchairs set out to rethink what a wheelchair can do.
Several prototypes and eight patents later, what could be the fastest and most user-friendly high-tech wheelchair stood on the starting line at the 2008 Paralympics.
Jeff Adams and Christian Bagg are Canadian competitive athletes. Adams is a three-time Olympian and five-time Paralympian medallist in 1,500-metre wheelchair racing. Bagg was a semi-professional mountain biker and big-air snowboarder before an injury during a competition left him in a wheelchair. Both men are visionaries.
The two are driven to help empower fellow wheelchair users by improving wheelchair design. They have found that many people use wheelchairs that are too big for them. The high purchase price, around 4,000 U.S. dollars, means wheelchairs are not replaced often. Many are bought too large with the idea that users will “grow into them”.
Adams and Bagg design wheelchairs that employ components, allowing their users to personalise them to fit current needs. The users can later buy additional components such as seats or backrests to match future requirements, without having to buy a new wheelchair.
“The concept for this wheelchair, which is an everyday wheelchair, comes from sport,” Adams says. “The way we see it, life is a competition and you owe it to yourself to have your best competition every day.”
Adams and Bagg had worked on some prototype examples of the everyday and racing wheelchairs. They took the designs to Phil White and Gerard Vroomen, cofounders of Cervélo Cycles, one of the world’s top bicycle manufacturers.
Bagg, a machinist by trade, saw the possibilities of using bicycle technology to improve wheelchair design. “We spoke with Cervélo Cycles about our hope of using existing technology from the bicycle industry to develop innovations that were not previously available in the wheelchair market,” he says.
Cervélo Cycles agreed to form a partnership with Adams and Bagg and work with them to bring their wheelchair design to market.
“For us, a wheelchair is just a sideways bicycle,” Adams says. “So by partnering with one of the best bicycle manufacturers in the world, we figured we could get one step closer to designing a product that would make the most of technology and expertise and have the most potential to improve the user’s quality of life.”
Cervélo suggested that the two entrepreneurs talk to Sapa Profiles Inc. in Portland, Oregon, about manufacturing their wheelchair product. If the wheelchair frame was to be made from welded aluminium profiles, Cervélo said, Sapa Profiles Inc. was the obvious choice for production.
Adams and Bagg travelled to Sapa in Portland to meet Ray Goody, product manager assemblies, and visit the Sapa factories.
“I’ll never forget that first visit to Sapa,” Bagg says. “Jeff and I were looking at all the multimillion-dollar equipment that Sapa had, and we couldn’t believe that they would be interested in doing business with us. Our project is on such a small scale compared to other things they are working on.”
“But Ray Goody told us that Sapa welcomes all types of projects, and that our project adds value to their company,” he says. “I have a manufacturing background, but in working with Sapa I didn’t have to try and control all the processes, which would probably be the case if we were working with other manufacturers.”
Cervélo supplied Sapa with the complete design print production drawings, with tolerances and manufacture notes.
“The wheelchair that the company has designed is really a unique product,” Goody says. “There are multiple adjustments for comfort, and the frame design utilises mountain bike suspension technology.”
“Sapa was able to offer suggestions on how different forming aspects could make the design look even more cutting-edge. We made use of a past production process that worked excellently for this application.”
In addition, Sapa was able to use many of its standard manufacturing methods so that the production work could be done in-house, using existing machinery, dedicated cell manufacturing and their highly skilled group of aluminium “tig” welders.
Aluminium can beco me very soft when exposed to high temperatures during welding, but Sapa has a method to make the aluminium frames sturdy and durable.
“We were able to use solutions from our diverse operations, such as using aircraft-certified heat treatments on the welded aluminium that will ensure that the wheelchair frames will be as sturdy after welding as they were before,” Goody says.
Marvel by Cervélo was launched in time for the 2008 Paralympic Games in China. The company sponsored the Canadian Paralympic team and donated a wheelchair to each wheelchair-using competitor.
“The launch of the regular wheelchairs went great. Competitors from all over the world sought me out in the Olympic village just
to have a look at the wheelchair. They were impressed by the quality, and now we have a heap of orders waiting,” says Jeff Adams.
Things didn’t go quite so well on the track, however.
“I was involved in a crash in the 1500-metre heats and was disqualified. That’s the way competition goes.”
Text: Tsemaye Opubor Hambraeus