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If you want to live on the more adventurous or exciting side of life then being in a wheelchair is no obstacle at all. OK, so changing light-bulbs is little tricky from a wheelchair, but household chores are over-rated and that’s why the head-torch was invented anyway.

With disability sports equipment becoming more and more available the options for getting away from the pavement/sidewalk (depending on which side of the pond you live) are greater than ever before. The biggest hurdle to many disabled people when it comes to handcycles and other specialist disabled sports equipment is cost.

Sure you can get off road if you buy that shiny new all-terrain wheelchair/handcycle/tank hybrid. But for those who cant afford the astronomical costs, and dont want to sell their kidneys to raise the money, how do you get that adventure in your life.

Well the most useful piece of equipment everyone in a wheelchair has available to them is..drumroll…their wheelchair. It’s not the most economical mode of transport at the best of times, especially when you take it away from nicely leveled floor areas onto rocks and steep slopes, but that hasn’t stopped others and it shouldn’t stop you either.

Here are 5 wheelchair pioneers who have set the standard for taking wheelchairs to places that wheelchairs shouldn’t really be.

RICK HANSEN

Rick Hansen was paralysed at the age of 15 when he was thrown from the back of a truck. Before his accident Rick had been an award winning high school track athlete and upon completing his rehabilitation he completed high school and then graduated university in physical education.
He went on to win national championships on wheelchair volleyball and wheelchair basketball teams before concentrating on athletics and marathons. In the 1980 Paralympic Games, Rick won a gold medal in the 800m event and has won three World Championship Marathon events. 

As if all that wasn’t impressive enough, in 1985 Rick decided it would be a pretty cool idea to take himself around the world, in his wheelchair to raise money for spinal injury research. He became a Canadian national hero, and made the entire world feel lazy after completing the 44,000km trek through 34 countries in 26 months.

44,000kms in a wheelchair! That is about as hardcore as it can get, and this was all back in 1985 when the average light-weight wheelchair resembled my grandmothers couch, made out of solid steel.

Ever watched the film “St.Elmo’s Fire” or heard the theme song by the same name?. The song was written about Rick Hansen and his crazy round-the-world “Man In Motion” tour. It’s a pretty safe bet that anyone who has an iPod with a “Songs to work-out to” playlist will have St.Elmo’s Fire in there somewhere, that and Eye of the Tiger.

The Rick Hansen Foundation

MARK WELLMAN

Mark Wellman was paralysed in a climbing accident back in 1982. An expert climber, he had already bagged over 50 peaks since he began climber when he was 12. Following his accident he became the first wheelchair user to serve full time as a Park Ranger, working in the Yosemite National Park and working as the director for handicap services there.

It didnt take him long to get his chalk bag out again, Mark is one of the pioneers of rock climbing for disabled people and has designed and adapted techniques to allow paraplegic’s to get the rock-hugging buzz.

In 1989, 7 years after his accident, Mark made history by becoming the first ever paraplegic to climb the 3000ft El Capitan (the world’s tallest standing monolith of rock) in Yosemite National Park. 

With just normal rock climbing equipment, modified to meet his needs, Mark Wellman and his climbing partner took 7 1/2 days to climb the beast and pioneered the way for people in wheelchairs to climb huge lumps of rocks for fun.

He estimates that his technique of pulling himself up the rope, over the course of those 7 1/2 days, took about 7000 pull-ups.

So what expensive specialized equipment did he use, none, just an adapted rope ascender fitted with a pull-up bar and some padded trousers so the climbing harness wouldn’t cut off blood flow in his legs.

Since then Mark has gone on to light the Olympic torch (by climbing a 120ft rope, of course), made the first solo crossing of the Sierra Nevada mountain range by a paraplegic and helped found the No Barriers Mountain Festival for people with disabilities.

Mark Wellman - No Limits
No Barriers Mountain Festival

Bob Coomber

Bob Coomber (better known as 4WheelBob) decided one day that he would actually quite like to climb a mountain. Being in a wheelchair wasnt going to stop him and he decided that the mountain he would like to climb was the 14,000ft White Mountain outside San Francisco.

After loosing the use of his legs by way of juvenile diabetes 4WheelBob became frustrated at not being able to go on hikes as he had before and wanted to enjoy nature again.

So he set off on paths and routes around the countryside enjoying the freedom his friends thought he had lost with the arrival of a wheelchair. After thee failed attempts at making it to the summit of White Mountain Bob finally made it. Becoming the first person in a wheelchair to scale a 14,000ft mountain.

In nothing more than an everyday wheelchair, although we’re betting that he got through a few pairs of gloves.

4WheelBob
Related News Article

Aaron Fotheringham

Aaron became a wheelchair celebrity last year when a video of him training for, and then completing the worlds first wheelchair backflip emerged on YouTube. The 17 year old has been in a wheelchair since he was 3 years old due to spina bifida and used to go to the the skate park to watch his brother do bmx tricks.

One day he decided to give it a try and dropped in to see how it would work out in a wheelchair, and so extreme sitting was born.

Aaron does have a fancy wheelchair with suspension in it, but it isn’t exactly specialized because it’s his everyday chair and readily available from Colours Wheelchairs (The “Boing” model). Plus we wanted to include him in this list because firstly doing a backflip in a wheelchair is the coolest thing ever, and to show that you dont need mountains to get a wheelchair fueled adrenaline rush.

Just incase you havent seen the video of Aaron ripping the park:

Aaron now competes in Am Jam competitions against able bodied BMX riders, and beats a lot of them.

Related ESPN Article
Colours Wheelchairs (they sponsor Aaron)