Question for you: how much do you need to bend at the waist to ride your Brompton? And what’s it like to carry around folded, weight-wise? How does it make getting around easier for you than walking does, specifically? (Okay, I think I’m asking for a guest post, or a post on Hackamore Travel that I can link to.)

My particular condition makes bicycling on a traditional model ill-advised for any length of time. Recumbant bikes are much better for me–in fact I’ve got a recumant stationary bike at home as recommended by my physical therapist. And sometimes I can’t carry more than about 5kg.

So I’m not sure that this mode of transport would work for me personally. But I’d love to give my readers information about it as an option, preferrably from a “power user” like you.

years ago but post accident I could still walk at a leisurely pace for short distances on flat ground… so I toughed it out… and took lots of drugs.

NOW I just get a chair and all the advantages that come with it.

I also check my Brompton folding bicycle as my “handicapped mobility aid” and it helps me get around at my destination much better than a wheelchair.

I bought it in Amsterdam at Tromm’s Tweewielers ( http://www.tromm.nl/ ) the page is in nederlands but they speak perfect english… it’s a full service bike shop that specializes in folding bikes….

By now my Brompton has been to California twice, Jamaica four times, All Over Europe several times, plus “local” trips like New Orleans or St. Louis plus serving me for years at work 5 days a week…

now sometimes it takes some social engineering to get the less open minded to accept it… usually just showing them the steel leg brace on my leg… and in the US reminding them that they have to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act.

At the Louvre in Paris I checked it at the coat check and got a wheelchair…. same as the D-Day museum in New Orleans or the Rijksmusuem in Amsterdam.

The Comic Art museum in SF just let me in with it.

Eat New Orleans (good food btw) just let me fold it and put it under the table (standard procedure for me).

At the Clignancourt markets in Paris some were OK, some took some sweet talk… “I’m just a crippled old man, it’s like a wheelchair, and you’d let a wheelchair in right?” (wheelchair in french is a “chaise rollant”)

For Amsterdam or Paris contact me via http://www.hackamoretravel.com and I’ll help with “handicapped friendly” hotels. With a little advance planning you don’t have to stay in a modern cookie cutter hotel just because you can’t climb a long flight of stairs… though if you wait sometimes you have to… but even then some are better than others.

I’ve added a Subscribe by Email link to the right-hand column here, and will add one at eatswritesandleaves.com as well. That should shoot my blogs right to your email account.

Please let me know if you have any problems with the emails, and I’ll work at fixing it.

Thank you,
Ann