REPORTING. "I live again as if I were clairvoyant" : how cycling is changing to adapt to people with disabilities
For the sixth year, the Vélo in Paris festival is taking place at the Parc Floral, in the Bois de Vincennes, until Monday April 29. The opportunity to discuss the different issues of cycling development, with round tables and conferences, such as the adaptation of cycling for women or accessibility for users with disabilities.
While young and old race balance bikes, others discover bikes that open up new horizons, like the handbike, “a manually powered bicycle, with a ‘handwheel’ and not a crankset”explains Paul Mousny, who founded an association to provide access to bicycle trips for people with disabilities.
“It’s a fabulous tool,” for people in wheelchairs, for example, he explains. “Because the wheelchair is good, but pushing it at arm’s length on paths is not very easy. After a kilometer, it is very complicated. On the other hand, the handbike is a tool which allows you to completely escape, in pure autonomy”, rejoices Paul Mousny, who allows “It’s up to these people to take bicycle trips like everyone else.”
There is a “velosolution” for each disability. Christophe Dérouet is blind and founder of the site handivélo.fr. He practices tandem, but there are obstacles to the practice. “The difficulty, of course, is having pilots to guide us, because for the moment we have not found techniques for cycling alone. And architecture too : the anti-motorcycle barriers block in tandem. It’s also a barrier for people who want to cycle.”
A question of arrangements which is precisely at the center of the mission of Marie Lemière, project manager at the ministerial delegation for accessibility. “It’s true that now there is a diversity of bicycles. There are handbikes, tandems, tricycles. So we have to take into account all the diversity of problems and obstacles that they may encounter.”
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