New Entry in Wheelchair Business Is on a Roll

It looks like a go-cart. It’s built like a tricycle. It moves like the wind.

It’s a racing wheelchair, and it’s coming to bicycle shops this year.

Cannondale Corp., having made bicycles for 25 years, is bringing its know-how to making wheelchairs, both sport and everyday.

“It’s all the same stuff, just arranged in a different way,” said Joe Montgomery, Cannondale chief executive.

These wheelchairs won’t be found in medical-supply houses. They will be sold next to bicycles.

“It’s a huge psychological big deal,” Montgomery said. He knows. His 10-year-old son, Michael, has cerebral palsy. Over the years, Montgomery became frustrated with wheelchair prices--the one Michael uses now cost $5,600--and the chairs’ tendency to break.

So Montgomery decided to make wheelchairs himself. After all, who more able to realize a boy’s needs than his father? Who better to tackle the sport-wheelchair challenge than a bicycle maker?

Montgomery hopes to capture 10% of the $40 million-a-year wheelchair market. The sport-chair market is smaller. At least four brands share about $13 million in sales a year: Quickie and Shadow brand wheelchairs in Fresno; Action Top End brand in Pinellas Park, Fla.; and two small brands, New Halls Wheels in Cambridge, Mass., and Eagle Sports Chairs in Snelville, Ga.

The newcomer, Cannondale, is based in Georgetown, Conn., and has factories in Pennsylvania in Phillipsburg and Bedford.

The strong yet light aluminum tubing that goes into Cannondale bicycle frames will be used in its wheelchairs. A basic model will cost $1,500, about the same as other brands, and a state-of-the-art, fully loaded chair will cost up to $5,000, said Alex Morton, the company’s product management director.

Just as other athletes prefer shoes designed for their sport, wheelchair athletes, who race at speeds up to 23 mph, want a variety of chairs. For instance, young Michael cannot use a road-racer or a clunky everyday chair to play goalie in a hockey game.

“When you’re rolling around on ice, the biggest problem is stopping yourself,” Montgomery said.

The company plans to make a maneuverable court chair for basketball or tennis; a chair with wide, knobby tires for off-road use; a handcycle, or a bicycle pedaled by hand; and a three-wheel chair for road racing.

Sport chairs have been made commercially since the 1970s in response to demand from veterans injured in the Vietnam War, said Chris Peterson, product development manager for Action Top End chairs. But sales of sport chairs have really taken off, and grew about 20% in the early 1990s, Morton said.

Helping Cannondale to develop the sport chairs is Jim Knaub, a paraplegic and five-time wheelchair winner at the Boston Marathon.

He joined Cannondale in March as a company-sponsored wheelchair racer and production manager, figuring if the company makes good bicycles, wheelchairs should be easy. “It’s as if Ford wanted to make a lawn mower,” Knaub said.

The factory in Bedford, about 85 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, is a maze of welding booths, parts racks, hanging assembly lines and sewing machines, where seamstresses make jerseys and shorts.

So far, the company has made wheelchairs for its racing team only. It hasn’t accepted orders from the public, but is already fielding calls, said Ron Litke, a Cannondale engineer.

With a computer, Litke will be able to modify chairs to fit individuals, whose measurements will be taken by employees at the bicycle shops. The computer determines how to cut the tubing for the frame.

For Knaub, who lost the use of his legs in a car accident 17 years ago, the attention finally being given to wheelchair racers is long overdue.

“The human spirit isn’t really limited in passion and knowledge,” Knaub said. “But you’re very limited to where the chair can take you.”