Dave and Rob’s custom trike

After seeing the post yesterday about the DuoCycle, Dave Thompson sent me this picture of a similar trike that he designed and built for himself and his son. Dave’s son Rob was in a car accident three years ago and suffered a severe head injury that left him in a wheelchair. The trike Dave built allows the two of them to ride together, and that riding has helped Rob make progress toward walking again.

It really is a pretty inspiring story…check out this video of Dave and Rob riding the trike that they built. You can also see pictures of the build process, as well as a few CAD images from the design phase, in Dave’s Picassa album for the project. As I said…this a truly inspiring project…and it is great to hear that it is helping Rob to recover. Nice work, Dave!

Posted

May 27, 2011

Concept, Utility / Cargo Bike

James

Tags:

custom, recumbent, tandem, trike

Comments

7 responses to “Dave and Rob’s custom trike”

Juliano Pappalardo

May 27, 2011

My day is more happy after this, thank you all.

There is somthing like this: “only love builds”

Is this design going to be produced? I think that many people would like to carry a friend on these two ideas, nice inspiration to Wim´s work.
Best luck

Reply
Ross Nicholson

May 28, 2011

Steering seems to be in the hands of the tricyclist on this design.
Some bicycle trailers available on-line will carry a person, too, as you’ve mentioned before I believe.

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Adam Rice

May 31, 2011

Reminds me of the Opus Counterpoint tandem (the design for which I believe Bilenky is now manufacturing as the Viewpoint), but in trike form. Nifty. Wonder how it handles.

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buddy

June 2, 2011

Agree with Juliano ! I would get one !

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Dad builds a custom velocipede tandem to help his son recover from brain injury

June 2, 2011

[…] and an interesting design. Dads are the best… which reminds me, father's day is comin up… Dave and Rob Reply With Quote + Reply to Thread « Previous Thread | […]

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Custom Adaptive Trike « Urban Velo

June 7, 2011

[…] Bicycle Design recently featured a short write-up on the picture custom adaptive trike engineer dad Dave made so that he and his son Rob can ride together. Rob suffered a brain injury a few years back that left him with loss of motor control on one side of his body, and through his dad’s efforts is now able to get out and ride and is regaining strength and mobility. It’s a long recovery road, but they’re pedaling it together. They’ve also posted a video showing Rob getting into the trike and turning the pedals. Published by brad on June 7, 2011 in News & Views. 0 Comments […]

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Mark Rolfsmeyer

March 19, 2019

I’m trying to get in touch with Dave Thompson. I have a son with severe autism and would like to build a similar bike

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