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My two-year-old daughter has a full right arm, a left arm that stops above where her elbow would be, no right leg at all, and a full left leg. We have found a product she can ride (the Amtryke), but it's awfully expensive.

The goal is to have a hand and foot cycle that is something like this product: http://www.amtrykestore.org/AM-9XS_AM-9S-AM-9S_with_Bucket_Seat.html

We don't want to purchase that product due to cost... we are willing to build it ourselves in order to keep the cost down. Maybe we could collect parts from multiple used kids' tricycles?

We would be willing to purchase a bike if it were more in the $100 range - - the above product would be $400 for now, and she'd grow out of that quickly and need the $700 version. That's WAY too expensive for us!

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    Does she have arm and leg at the same side of the body, or on opposite sides. This might influence balance and affect the possible choices. – heltonbiker Mar 27 '12 at 13:24
  • Also, would you like to buy a ready solution, or would you build one yourself? – heltonbiker Mar 27 '12 at 13:24
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    You might want to try to find a parents' organization that arranges to "hand down" adaptive bikes from kids who outgrow them. – Daniel R Hicks Mar 27 '12 at 20:31
  • Unless you happen to have a few thousand dollars worth of tools you won't be able to build something like that. Doing it just with the minimal set of tools would be hard since you want a safe build as well (see eg this question bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/2908/…) – Kohi Mar 27 '12 at 23:18
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    Please keep us up to date on what you find. I personally may be in the market for some sort of adaptive bike in the future, and would like to become aware of some of the concepts. – Daniel R Hicks Jul 11 '12 at 1:12
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I think you can probably get a copy of the PET plans for free, if you ask nice. It's a pure handcycle, but designed for easy construction, and they should have sources for the parts, etc. You could perhaps adapt the design for your needs.

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  • To add the foot pedals you could put a crank with a chainring through the wheel axle then have the chain from the hand powered crank attach to it. – Mac Mar 27 '12 at 21:48
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I'm trying to figure out the easiest way for this to work. She could essentially pedal with just a single leg if she had toe clips or clipless pedals. Google "one legged cyclist" and you'll see quite a few examples cyclists with only one leg who ride unmodified bikes. Steering might be a problem with only a single arm, but hopefully a prosthesis can help for that. The hard part would be building up enough strength in the one leg, but it can be done. Also, if you get a standard trike with a handle similar as on the bike you linked to, you could push her along a bit until she developed the necessary strength.

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    I wonder if maybe a "tag-along bike", combined with some sort of toe clip/clipless arrangement, might not be a good way to build leg strength and get her used to being on a bike. – Daniel R Hicks Jul 12 '12 at 19:11

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