Broken Spoke expands to wheelchair repair

Port Colborne college students Jackson Ajius and Connon Clare get some pointers from Damaged Spoke teacher Bruce Lowther. The Damaged Spoke program is increasing to incorporate wheelchair repairs.

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Greater than 15,000 bicycles have been constructed and given away by the Damaged Spoke program in Port Colborne, however for the group’s founder, Aubrey Foley, there’s all the time extra to do. Throughout his common journeys to the native landfill to retrieve bicycle elements, he’s usually informed there are many wheelchairs and walkers that would use a fast restore job as properly.

“To be trustworthy, I don’t have the time, and I actually don’t have the space for storing to do it,” stated Foley. Educating the Damaged Spoke program at Port Colborne Excessive Faculty takes up an enormous quantity of his time, and the store there's already bursting on the seams with outdated bicycles awaiting restore and new bikes awaiting a brand new residence, leaving little time and house for the rest. However Foley simply couldn’t bear to see all these wheelchairs — a few of which solely want minor repairs to be again and absolutely useful — sit round and rust.

So he discovered some neighborhood companions to assist him out. The Port Colborne Lions Membership has agreed to assist by providing up space for storing for all of the wheelchairs and elements, and Port Cares will assist out by utilizing their community of clientele to seek out good properties for the completed wheelchairs as soon as they’re repaired.

“Damaged Spoke is all about transportation, and we consider that as bikes, however to somebody with a mobility incapacity, a wheelchair is their type of transportation,” stated Foley. “So that is it; the subsequent section of Damaged Spoke will probably be including a full wheelchair restore store.”

Foley sees this as a pure extension of the Damaged Spoke program’s push towards inclusivity, because the group has not too long ago began producing specialised bikes for kids with stability and mobility points.

Since producing their first accessible bicycle prototype again in March 2021, the scholars at Damaged Spoke have since perfected the design and, thus far, have produced seven extra accessible bikes.

“The Niagara Kids’s Centre has develop into a giant a part of the operation,” stated Foley, who linked up with the group when searching for a technique to get the accessible bikes to the place the place they might have the largest affect. The Niagara Kids’s Centre offers rehabilitation and help providers to kids and youth with bodily, developmental and communicative delays and disabilities, and that usually consists of kids who've bother driving a standard bike. “They've some children there who, in the event that they really feel even a slight imbalance, they only can’t deal with it. So our new accessible bike design is rock-solid, it doesn’t tip over in any respect in any route.”

To make a donation, be it money, bicycles or wheelchairs, e mail Foley at thebrokenspoke99@gmail.com.