Inventive Offaly man swaps wheelchair for mountain bike this weekend

INVENTIVE Tullamore man Noel Joyce has come up with one of his most exciting ideas yet, a mountain bike for wheelchair users.

The award winning designer will showcase his Adaptive Mountain Bike (AMB) in the Slieve Blooms this weekend.

Noel has been confined to a wheelchair since a mountain bike accident in 2006 but he is now back enjoying the sport he loves.

A neighbour of his in Tullamore introduced him to the mountain bike trails in the Slieve Blooms and he first took to them on a standard hand bike but he soon put his innovation skills to use to come up with a better cycle.

He teamed up with designers in Spain and has been testing the carbon fibre three-wheeler constantly for a number of months, eventually refining an AMB with full suspension which can help smooth out the bumps of the hilly trails.

The result in a first of its kind.  "It took about a year to build this one out.  I have it since last September, I've been testing things and breaking things over the last several months and I'm working on the next iteration of it now," said Noel.

He has developed the bike to such a high standard that he will compete against normal two-wheeled mountain bikers in novice races this Saturday and Sunday in the Coillte Biking Blitz in Laois and Offaly.

"I'll be the only person in Ireland who's ever done a mountain bike in a wheelchair," he said.

"As the trails get more demanding (Noel is pictured below in the Slieve Blooms) the technology has to be better.  Even then when you're pushing hard you're pushing the boundaries."

Though a crash into a tree on a mountain bike is what paralysed the former Defence Forces man 16 years ago, returning to the sport has no fears for him.

"Not at all, if you love something you're going to do it.  It's just the sense of freedom you get. It's very difficult to go anywhere in a wheelchair but to get into a place where I can do go up and down a mountain... I don't think there's anyone in a wheelchair who has gone places like it and seen what I've seen."

He said he was going like "a snail" when he first tried the Slieve Bloom trails on his normal bike but biking at speed in a mountain forest on his own creation brings a special thrill.

"For the 10 or 15 minutes that you might be going down a hill nothing else exists, you're completely in the moment, you're separated from everything else.  You're almost in bliss, nothing else matters when you're in it," he said.

Noel, 42, hopes that other wheelchair users will be able to share his experience of the outdoors by getting on board similar bikes.

"It can be a prohibitive sport because of the expense but I'm trying to build something that other people can have, that they can get the design files and build one themselves."

WATCH NOEL IN ACTION HERE:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cb3IbsQpMbp/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Noel stressed that Coillte "have done an amazing job" by providing the mountain bike facilities and allowing people use them free of charge, unlike other countries.

His advice to everyone, wheelchair user or not, is simple: "If you're able to get up there and do it, do it. It's great to be out in nature."

Noel previously invented Ergo-Stop, a braking system for wheelchairs. A founder of the DesignHub in Tullamore, he also developed innovations as diverse as a magnetic stylus and gardening products and has partnered with Sean O'Sullivan of Dragons' Den.

A graduate of Carlow IT, he has worked around the world on design and innovation projects, especially China.

He is currently based at home and lectures remotely at the New York University Shanghai campus.