[Closed] For those interested parties (one armed rider update)

Well done to you, My mate who i ride with lost his arm some years ago due to a motorbike accident. He rides all the time and is a pretty good xc racer. He can do sub 50 min laps of cwmcarn and finished 14th in the 50km vet at margam the other week and wants to go faster all the time. If you would like some help with bike set up and things im sure he would be more than happy to help.

very inspirational!

i was touring through the black forest a few years ago towing a bob trailer up a 12% incline. thought i was doing well to keep up with the walkers then some dude with one leg went storming past me..... he was on a road bike and had less body mass to move so technically he was cheating.

respect to all 3 limbed cyclists out doing what they enjoy!

you seen those pics of the amputees on TJ's link? jeeesus! balls 'o steel.

There was a one armed, one legged rider at 10 Under the Ben this year!

Much respect.

Yes, seen the mtb-amputee site before - it's pretty cool, isn't it? I think that was one of the other things that really convinced J he could not only get back on his bike but still do interesting stuff.
I always whinge at J saying the reason he wastes me on the uphills is because of the weight advantage. I don't think I can really win that one though 'cos he always comes back with the 'residual effects of the chemo' argument. Pah, some people... 😉

Ollie - does your mate use a prosthetic or does he just ride one-handed?

Respect - not sure I can whine so much now! 😀

Does it cause any balance issues? I realise he probably compensates but would weights on the other bar help - just a thought from the (totally) uninitiated

There was a lad I used to ride against in the Meridas with a leg missing - hell of a bloke and the bugger always beat me by 10 mins or so! Think he'd lost it in Bosnia or something. Never laughed so much when a South Africaner one year joined us and started bitching about cramp in his leg - this other lad simply rubbed his prosthetic limb and said 'its a bitch isnt it'

Tankslapper - the weights question is a really interesting one. He definitely rides a bit twisted to balance himself on the bike and then ends up with back ache sometimes, so I wonder whether something like this might be worth looking into? I am a bit useless at physics so I don't know whether it would help or not?
He's our resident geek so I will mention it to him...

TN, He does use a prosthetic with a sort of ball joint and cup that he has had made. He has only just had it updated because the older version could sometimes rattle loose. The new version is alot better fit and gives him more control and is alot lighter. I will see if he can send you some pictures and info.

Ollie, that would be great. thanks. You can, in theory, mail by clicking on my name...

No problem, I am out riding with simon tonight so i will get him to contact you and sort some pics

[i]BoardinBob - Member
There was a one armed, one legged rider at 10 Under the Ben this year!

Much respect.[/i]

That was Dave Adams. He unfortunately fell off on his first lap due to another rider stalling on a techy section. As you can imagine, quick dismounts are probably a bit of an issue when trying to unclip a prosthetic leg. Anyhow, he told me the marshall nearly fainted when his bike fell away with his leg still attached. It was a few seconds later the marshall realised it was his false leg. They had a right laugh about it.

Unfortunately he had hurt himself too badly to carry on so that was the end of his event. Really sound bloke and loves his bikes

[img] ?v=0[/img]
We broke the 20 mile barrier today! 🙂 (32km for you newfangled types, with about 700m ascent, mostly off road!)
He says his remaining arm doesn't feel too bad afterwards which is really good news. I am fairly sure it is the new bike that's helping - he's definitely better on the hills and apart from a couple of 'dumb falls' he was mostly upright today.

And afterwards - knackered but pretty pleased with himself.
[img] ?v=0[/img]

Ta for the update - its good to see how he is getting on.

This might be a daft idea but I would have thought a big problem would be when braking that he will tend to push on the bar and turn the bike. Would a handlebar that was more like a tiller mounted centrally but moving side to side make this easier? Something like a tri bar?

He would still have the levarage to turn the steering but under braking he would not have an offcentre load. Steering would be weird but braking would be easier.

On motorcycles one armed riders sometimes use kneepads on the tank to lean onto to take the braking loads to keep these loads off the bars. I cannot see anyway of doing this on a bicycle tho unless he could put a pad on the side of the top tube just infront of the knee in its most forward position on the side with no arm - then under braking the load would be taken on the knee one side and the arm the other.

Just a thought and might be daft.

Hi TandemJeremy. Interesting ideas, thank you. I read your post to J and he is quite intrigued by the pad on the top tube idea. I think we might see if we can rig something and give it a go. Will keep you informed...

This is great - everyone coming up with ideas and suggestions and even if they might not be suitable for J they might be able to help someone else at some point in the future. This is when internet forums are at their very best. 🙂

Nae worries - sometimes thinking in an unorthodox way has its benefits 🙂

Odd tho it may be this is the sort of area that has interested me for years.

Not read through the whole lot but has he tried using a steering damper, I understand for arm amps it can be a great help.
Also may be worth looking at something like this http://www.velotechservices.co.uk/rotors.htm as it would help with not putting so much torque through his upper body.
And lastly, you guys going to beyond bounderies live?

Hi 1LegRikk. J had a steering damper on the hardtail but not on this new full sus yet. Hopey are sending a new bracket to fit the bike but he's riding pretty well without. I don't know what beyond bounderies live is, so not planned to go - will look it up though. Is it something you're involved in, or would you be going as a visitor?

http://www.beyondboundarieslive.co.uk
I was meant to be showing with another amp and doing a talk each day but the organisers couldn't get it arranged in time so we're just going to ride around in the display field showing the flag for amp cyclists and answer any Q's people have.
Hopefully next year we can do the full monty 🙂
Would be good if J can get himself sorted with an arm, a lot of mtb ones use a fox shock at the elbow to damped the forces and are meant to work well.
The NHS with anything out of the mainstream ie arms/legs for cycling are terrible, I gave up asking and altered my spare leg myself, the limb centre went mental but it did make them realise I was serious and from then on did me legs to my specification for cycling.
Do your research, work out what you need and why and keep pushing, just be forceful and annoying, eventually you win 😉

It seems the prosthetist has come up with a possible plan for a riding arm, but without the approval of the consultant so not sure yet whether he'll even get that. The consultant appears to want all his patients to sit back and be gentle with themselves.
As far as J is concerned it is about getting back to your life pre-cancer and amputation - and to him that is climbing and cycling. Surely that should also be the aim of the NHS consultant? His occupational therapist has been great in trying to get him 'something' sorted out, but she has just retired so we have no idea what the person who takes over will be like.
The major problem is fixing any prosthetic securely and also the shoulder joint. Elbows are (relatively) easy and that's where the shocks come in, but because of the range of movement in the shoulder creating something that will stay where it should when needed and yet 'give' sometimes is proving more complicated.

Nope their not about getting you back to you used to be doing, it's all about getting you well/able enough to live and look after yourself, after that it's all gravy.
Same with me when I said I'd starting cycling, it was up to me to change the bike to fit what they'd done which was fine to begin with while I riding around the park but once I started getting a bit more adventurous the limitations started showing through.
I then decided to make the bike as standard as possible and alter the leg to fit the bike, that's when the issues with the limb centre started as they have no remit to do anything but get you mobile.
I found it works best to go to them with what you want and push for it and I don't just mean "I want a working arm", design it, show them how to do it and exactly what he needs, I asked for some more changes and they've said no as it deviates to far from standard so I've designed what i want and am getting some bits through the back door of the limb centre which I'll then take to an engineering firm to make up for me, once I know it works I'll take it in to the limb centre and show them it works as I said, at that point they cave in with the good thing being they will then let others have it as it's been proved.
Have a chat with these guys http://www.pacerehab.com/ they make the limbs for sportsmen and paralympians, great bunch of guys and very helpful, also you can get refured to them by your limb centre but that IS an uphill struggle 🙁

Rikk, we have a friend who has been working with Pace to get a good mountainbiking leg design sorted out. I think they've been working on sorting out a good socket more than anything. I don't know whether you're all set up now, but if not I could put you in touch with him, maybe it could save you or him reinventing the wheel...

The OT put J in touch with a couple of local retired engineers who help out with solutions for amputees but when he told them what he wanted they pretty much ran off. :-S
If this 'project' by the prosthetist doesn't come to anything I think our next stop will be the university (engineering or prosthetics? Not sure yet) to see whether any of their students fancy a project...

Now J is back riding and we've all mentally patted him on the back and said 'Well done mate!' this is now morphing into the most interesting technical thread to ever hit STW. I, for one, am glued to it. If you do get him an arm built, you realise we gotta have pics, don't you?
😀

Oh don't worry, there will be pics!

Just thinking, it may be worth going back to real basics...thinking it through trying to replicate the shoulder/elbow/wrist elbow isn't really needed initially all you need is an equal force pushing against the bars on the other side to stabilise them.
To start I'd be looking at a simple air spring between the shoulder and bars like this http://www.camloc.com/product.asp?id=1 but a lot lower pressure.
Yes a shoulder/elbow/wrist gives more options off the bike but look at what's actually needed and to start I can't see it being anymore than that?
It should also make the shoulder attachment much easier as it's only taking force in one direction.
Comments?
Anyone else?

I like that idea Rikk I think the attachment to his shoulder is the difficult part - I don't think he has anything left there at all.

I guess he doesn't need a cosmetic arm at all - just something to lean on under braking on that side so a strut with a clip onto the bars and a shock absorber between his shoulder and the bars sounds good

Yep that's why i thought this was the easiest solution, if you look to replicate a shoulder/elbow the twisting forces on the socket at the shoulder will be very hard to control, but with just a single point pushing back from the bars to the shoulder the only force you need to control is a backwards force which can easily be done with straps on the socket....grr it's at times like this I wish I wasn't so bloody useless at drawing as I can see it in my mind just can't get it over.
I'll try and find a jpg of a shop dummy torso later and draw it on that.

You guys are great. 🙂
I am not sure what the prosthetist has come up with yet, but it sounds like it is similar to what Rikk has described - J's next appointment isn't until next week so we'll let you know.
There's a photo above that gives you an idea what shape is left. Basically though, it's just his ribcage with a layer of skin over it. That's apparently the problem - there are no lumps or bumps to 'secure' anything to, so the strapping has to be around his torso quite firmly - but not so firmly he can't breathe when he is riding.
Where are you guys based - this sounds very much like it needs a night in the pub with beer and lots of paper and pencils... 🙂

if your going to a university, our penultimate year mechanical engineering project was a group (4 or 5) effort with 3 or 4 different projects in the year so there was atleast 4 or 5 other groups doing the same. Obviously this depends on the Uni's curriculum

I think something like that would be an excellent start, leaves scope for developing further and you may get a few workable solutions.

Why not look at building it into something like this
[img] [/img]

Also if the connection point is just below the collar bone the majority of forces would just be pushing against it or pulling away as it extends.
Built into a torso protector like the one above it would spread the load evenly without it all going through one or two straps

TN - I am Edinburgh based. I am still pondering this and will post again if I come up with any more ideas

Does he have anything left of the shoulder? Collarbone? / shoulder blade?

I am guessing braking is the biggest issue - staying stable on the bike or does whatever "arm" attachment need to be able to be used for bracing in other directions?

If you contact me by email i would happily call the guy i mentioned earlier to talk to you. He already has a prosthetic riding arm designed for the job so will probably have quite a lot of relevant info. He is also the guy who has some rather neat solutions regarding braking systems etc.

TJ - there's nothing left of the shoulder - well, about an inch of collarbone but no shoulderblade. It was a biggie....

The main need for stabilisation is indeed when braking and/or going downhill. It is difficult for him to shift his weight back easily and brake and remain stable/supported.
I keep trying to work out 'better' riding positions for him - I know my 'extra' weight on the left means it's not an accurate test, but it really is quite tricky to do it. I tend to shift left on my saddle and wedge my left knee into the cross tube with my right leg and pedal forward and 'braced', but it is a bit of an unnatural position to be in and is difficult to move easily from should you need to, while still going downhill. (does that make sense?)

Rikk, we have motocross armour jacket which we thought we could maybe modify but it's not 'sturdy' enough to work - we can look at others though.

Another further spanner in the works is that because he has lost quite a large surface area that he can sweat from, he overheats more easily than he used to. So we have to be careful how much of the remaining surface gets covered, or there has to be lots of ventilation...
(Not something we even considered until the surgeon pointed it out!!)

Regarding the sweat issue, obviously drink lots but also pop something like nuun tablets in the water to replace the electrolytes, not sure if he's tried one but buy a buff and wear it under the helmet it keeps you cooler and also stop the sweat dripping in your eye's
With regard to fixing, don't try and fix something to where the shoulder used to be, try fixing to the pec muscle so the forces are pushing into the body.
I found it's easier to think about the problem working out whats needed to sort it rather than try to replicate how the body did it.
When i finally get sorted with work I'll draw something up.

With regard to fixing, don't try and fix something to where the shoulder used to be, try fixing to the pec muscle so the forces are pushing into the body.

This is what I was thinking of - then it just needs to be secure enough not to slip rather than secure enough to hold all the forces.

Yep thats the idea 🙂
Very simple to then hold in place, so you have a small fiberglass plate over the pec to take the force and join the air spring to, coming off the plate you'd need two arms one to go around the side of the rib cage and 3-4 inches towards the spine and one going over the shoulder. If that is built in or attached to a nice open torso protector it will stay in place quite happily.
Once he's used that for a while you could experiment with another joint as an elbow and move from the air spring to cheap bike shock to pickup the movement at the elbow, as it would still effectivly just be pushing into the pec it should work just as well. The you can do funky things like having a shock with a platform on off so when cycling on relativly flat places you effectivly lock the shock out but when hitting the rough stuff turn off the platform damping for more movement.
BUT, better to start off simple and add things as you go than aim for the sky and constantly fail, little steps see what works and build on them.

J saw the prosthetists yesterday and here is riding arm #1.
It consists of a modified shoulder cap with a socket in the 'shoulder joint' area.
The arm clicks into that and locks.
The elbow is a fixed but adjustable joint, lockable in about 5 different positions, so it is fairly manual but he can adjust it to be straighter when he's going downhill, or more bent/shorter for on the flat.
The 'wrist' end clicks into a socket on the handlebar. I am not sure whether there is an 'emergency release' on this joint - I suspect not, and I'm not entirely happy if that's the case, but it's a prototype so we'll see.
He has only ridden laps of the hospital carpark so far but we have a gentle ride planned for the weekend (prosthetists orders - nothing too testing!!) and I have orders from J to take lots of pics and to film him, so I will post them too.

(problem posting picture - will try again...)

[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/29988153@N07/4112624968 ]click here cos I can't make the photo display[/url]

back in the early 90's there was a chap that had a prosthetic arm made up for mtbing and it featured a titanium Girven Flex Stem (remember them) as the elbow..

must be some pics somewhere.

Cool. I was wondering how he was getting on.
[img] [/img]

Blue and green anodising? I hope later prototypes are more colour coordinated! I suggest black and gold.
😉

Thanks TJ. 🙂

PP - I know, I know, Some people just have NO colour sense whatsoever, do they. Mind you, I DO like the little red cuff on it. I was hoping for a bit of carbon fibre at least. 😉

Will post action shots and possibly video later (but if I can't post pictures I don't really stand a chance, do I? In my defence, I just 'upgraded' to IE8 and I think that's the problem.)

A chap here at work once rode with a bloke with no hands. He had a ball-joint arrangement where the balls were on the end of his arms and slotted into the bars. Not sure how he worked the brakes.

We went for a ride yesterday with the new arm. We rode a local route so he could compare how it felt without and with the arm. The weather was grim though - we ended up with head winds up all the climbs, but the terrain was fairly challenging with lots of slidy and gloopy mud/cow or horse poo, unavoidable puddles and wet rocks.
We have a list of things that could be improved but on the whole it went quite well.
Photos to follow - having some trouble uploading them.

I ended up having to cut an inner tube up and lash the 'hand' bit to the bars because every time he leant back it popped out. That helped quite a lot.
And the shoulder joint lock is too easily caught so he ended up with his arm dangling from the handlebar at one point, which was a bit frustrating...
Also the fixing point at the shoulder it too low (which I thought initially but until you test it you can't say for sure, can you?)
The locking elbow is a drag because every time he gets to the top or bottom of a hill he has to stop and reposition it and relock it.

BUT, he said it definitely gave him some extra confidence and stability. He rode one of our usual downhill bits MUCH quicker than I have ever seen him ride it and with no dabs. 🙂 (He said that was partly arm and partly after we rode Rushup Edge - he said that's boosted his confidence a lot which is cool. 🙂 )
It looks like a damper/shock of some sort is going to be necessary because the multi-position lock out at the moment isn't working well. The prosthetists are well out of their comfort zone though so I think this may end up being a home project.

Will post photos soon.

Still can get pics to post 🙁
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/29988153@N07/4126864163/ ]Click here[/url]

Pictures 🙂 Go on to all sizes, right click / properties / location and paste into box that appears when you click img in the reply box

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

Thanks again TJ.
I wasn't doing the 'all sizes' bit - I was just clicking on the 'thumbnail' to open the pic and then taking the location properties from the larger version that opened. 🙁 I will try again in a bit.
I also have video to post, but I can't even get that to upload to flickr yet so I don't fancy my chances much... 😉
(Is this where I admit I am supposedly a techie?)

Hi TN
Thank you for this great story. I remember talking to a chap earlier this year at a XC race about his Yeti ASR. This dude was racing on the day and he also had a missing arm. He had a curved pincer type prosthetic fore-arm. I never asked him about how he managed , just talked bikes. 🙂
Well done to your mate and as someone said at the beginning of this thread, 'Who needs an arm if you have Balls...'
I am sure that a better solution will be found with a bit more Research and Development.
Best of luck.

Was at Delamere yesterday and there was a chap there with one arm (still had the other arm but obviously did nothing). Looks like he had an adapted road bike - hugely impressive, I have enough problem with two arms 😳

I was thinking about something wouldn't it be worth getting a gravity dropper?
It will indeed help in the down, plus he could hole the saddle between his tights to help directing the bike.

Plus I concur with peter 😉 it has to be black anodizing 😉

I ended up having to cut an inner tube up and lash the 'hand' bit to the bars because every time he leant back it popped out. That helped quite a lot.

Sorry TN - i'm not sure what movement J can impart on the riding arm but - having read the above I was wondering if there is anyway the arm and bar mount bracket can be adapted to take some sort of SPD clip in type system - compact enough and hopefully enough to hold in place when needed - and also release when needed!

Just a thought

Chris

Heard about this bloke last week - amazing riding shots. Going to point a few of the well it has to be improved because its increasing access for all people in the direction of these pics.

Chris, I am not sure (certainly with the current version of the arm) whether he'd be able to produce the motion required to clip out of an SPD-type arrangement, but it is certainly worth keeping in mind.

I think now he's tried this version we can look at ways to improve it - it's good to have a starting point.
To that end, he's currently watching various air shocks on 'that auction site' with a view to trying one of those instead of the current elbow arrangement. We figure if he can provide the part and some drawings, the prosthetics guys should be able to put it together. And if not, we know a fair few mad inventor types...

One interesting side effect was that after he had been riding 'with 2 hands' his phantom limb felt different - less cramped up and uncomfortable. I have heard people report that using a prosthetic can improve phantom limb pain but it was cool to see it in action. It didn't last long but he said it made a nice change. 🙂

I read about this therapy for phantom limb pain where they sat people next to a mirror so they could see their real limb reflected where their missing one would be. Their brain then sees two limbs and sorts itself out. One guy had been 20 years feeling that a missing hand was clenched painfully tightly, then he used this mirror, unclenched his real hand and that was it - pain gone.

Molgrips - mirror box therapy is pretty amazing, isn't it? It's kind of tricky for J because the 'standard' set up is to put the residual and/or phantom limb inside the box on one side and the remaining limb in the other side. Unfortunately J has no residual limb and he can't move his phantom to place it as though it were in the box, so it doesn't work for him at the mo. Maybe if the phantom moves in the future though...
It's a pity because it sounds like it does great things for those who can use it. Weird how the brain works though, isn't it?

The riding arm is progressing though now - 18bikes are looking into couplings to allow him to fit an air shock to the limb he's got so that he has a dynamic 'elbow' rather than one he has to lock in position. If that works it should improve things even further. Watch this space...

And here's another pic, just because...

[img] [/img]

Still looks like there's very little weight on the new arm tho..

But still - brave riding on the snow and ice like that 🙂