big dog
Feb 20th, 2006, 3:31 am
A mate of mine has been involved with one of the local disability camps near home by taking the campers (mentally and physically disabled ranging from can walk to living in a wheelchair full time) on rides around the camp's car park (liability and insurance reasons for not going out on the road). He's been doing it for over 17 years now, the rides having been started by the local HOG's who then faded away leaving my mate and a couple of blokes with chairs on their bikes to do the runs. I answered a call for extra bikes through one of the monthly bike mags 2.5 years ago and have been doing it since.
There are 3 camps a year with different campers at each one. The chairs cop a hiding as the majority of campers are disabled to the extent where they require mechanical lifting into the side cars and then supported by their carer or pillows or both.
Yesterday, we had another get together to take the campers around the car park for a ride. There were 13 bikes, 6 with chairs and the rest were solos. I turned up with the LT with my dad as pillion as he gets as much enjoyment watching the smiles of the campers as they go around in the bikes (or on the bikes) as I do. My LT was a big hit :D , took 4 campers for a ride around the car park. The campers seemed to feel secure with the top box / back rest there, no chance of falling off over the back of the bike. As well as that sense of security, we also had aircraft grade sashes with those plastic clamping units wrapped around the rider as well as the camper. One of the blokes had his HD Road King there and we had battlin' stereos as we went around :) .
The smiles at the end of the rides are sooooooo worth it. A lot of the campers can only communicate by hand gestures and smiling and it gives you a good feeling to give something back to people who have had a rough start to life whether through birth or accident. At the end of the riding, we get a certificate from the campers and we give them a little badge (one of the sidecar blokes has a heap of rally badges just for this purpose) as a momento fo the day.
Just thought I'd share this, not many feel good stories in the world ATM.
P.S. One of the side benefits of doing this is practicing my low speed manuouvering as we only get up to approximately 30 - 40 Kmh in the car park before we run out of road.
There are 3 camps a year with different campers at each one. The chairs cop a hiding as the majority of campers are disabled to the extent where they require mechanical lifting into the side cars and then supported by their carer or pillows or both.
Yesterday, we had another get together to take the campers around the car park for a ride. There were 13 bikes, 6 with chairs and the rest were solos. I turned up with the LT with my dad as pillion as he gets as much enjoyment watching the smiles of the campers as they go around in the bikes (or on the bikes) as I do. My LT was a big hit :D , took 4 campers for a ride around the car park. The campers seemed to feel secure with the top box / back rest there, no chance of falling off over the back of the bike. As well as that sense of security, we also had aircraft grade sashes with those plastic clamping units wrapped around the rider as well as the camper. One of the blokes had his HD Road King there and we had battlin' stereos as we went around :) .
The smiles at the end of the rides are sooooooo worth it. A lot of the campers can only communicate by hand gestures and smiling and it gives you a good feeling to give something back to people who have had a rough start to life whether through birth or accident. At the end of the riding, we get a certificate from the campers and we give them a little badge (one of the sidecar blokes has a heap of rally badges just for this purpose) as a momento fo the day.
Just thought I'd share this, not many feel good stories in the world ATM.
P.S. One of the side benefits of doing this is practicing my low speed manuouvering as we only get up to approximately 30 - 40 Kmh in the car park before we run out of road.