Canadian off-road bicycles are helping people with disabilities

After being paralysed in an accident, Bagg embarked on the development of adaptive mountain bikes and cross-country skis. Photos: Instagram/Bowheadcorp

The staff of Bowhead Corp was eating breakfast one day in Carmel Valley, California, the United States, laptops opened. Five orders for the company’s adaptive bicycles, including two from Ecuador, had arrived overnight.

It was a good karma moment with the Sea Otter Classic, a bicycling and outdoor sports festival in California, pending.

Named after the Bow River in Calgary, Canada, the elaborate machines were born from Christian Bagg’s investor’s persistence and remain engineered and assembled in Canada.

Bowhead has participated in the cycling festival for several years, but its presence has substantially grown.

Adaptive bicycles offer individuals with disabilities newfound freedom, empowering them to explore the outdoors.Bagg and his wife Ashley had a small booth and one cyclist competed on one of the fledgling company’s bikes at the event in 2017. The staff has steadily increased and about 30 adaptive cyclists competed this year.

“He (Christian) has been building stuff in the basement for years,” said Dean Miller, the company co-founder, president and chief executive officer.

“He had a cross-country ski set-up so he wouldn’t tumble into a tree well. And he came up with a bike about seven or eight years ago. He realised pretty quickly there wasn’t a lot of stuff (equipment) out there. I met him through a family friend who was injured in a diving accident.”

Miller started an adaptive mobility reselling organisation in 2006 with his cousin Joel, who had experienced a serious spinal cord injury. Miller and Bagg quickly collaborated.

The idea evolved from tragedy. Bagg, the company co-founder and now chief technical officer was a skilled snowboarder and mountain biker, a thrill seeker. He broke his back in a snowboarding big air competition in 1996 in Banff National Park in Alberta. He was paralysed from the waist down.

A former apprentice machinist, Bagg began developing adaptive mountain bikes and cross- country skis. Early contraptions failed but the first commercially viable machine evolved, the Reach.

As Bagg described it in a 2020 article: “The Reach evolved from this thing with a cross-country sit-ski bolted to the front of it, to this super professional, electric motor, articulation, best bike part on the planet. We built a mountain bike.”

Adaptive bicycles enable people with disabilities to fully engage in off-road biking experiences.

Bowhead delivered its first bike in November 2018 and has now sold them in 28 countries. It has three options, Reach, RX and Rogue, with prices varying from US$12,000 (RM56,548) to US$16,000 (RM75,398). The bikes are configured for athletes with different physical challenges.

The Reach, the highest priced, is, according to the company’s website, “a full suspension, an all-electric off-road adaptive trike that has two wheels in front”.

With more than 800 parts, the Reach weighs 42kg and has a top speed of 32km per hour. With its largest battery, the bike has a 61km range.

Throughout the four-day event, riders participating on Bowhead bikes gathered at the company booth, left their wheelchairs and had staff and supporters available for assistance.

Adaptive athletes compete in separate divisions, including the downhill, and dual slalom. The adaptive cyclists, participating in the Sea Otter Classic, are followed by a cyclist on a traditional bike.

They’re called “tailgunners”.“Mobility challenges are a big category,” said Miller. “Even within paraplegics... you have completely different levels (of injuries) and different bikes.”

This specialised bike improves physical health and boosts mental well-being.Ashley met her future husband in 2009. “He was already established in a chair,” she said. “So I kind of learned that world.” The couple have two children.

While helping set up the adaptive athletes’ lounge, Ashley explained the company’s growth and various users.

“We have younger (athletes), some with brain injuries to paraplegic to quadriplegics,” she said. “We have amputees and some with MS (multiple sclerosis), all that. There’s kind of a range. There’s even someone who might say, ‘My knees just don’t work like they used to’.”

While allowing challenged athletes to compete, the inclusivity hasn’t been fully accepted.

“It’s the perception of the bikes for some people,” Bagg said.

“We have a motor on our bikes. We have batteries on our bikes. It’s different. We need a big motor to climb. When people are just riding for fun, it’s ‘Hey you shouldn’t be out’.

“But the more you get out, the more aware people are. That’s the big thing.” – Monterey Daily Herald/Tribune News Service