Through my experiences and watching others use their chairs in the skatepark, the greatest limitation of the sport has always seemed to be the ability to generate and maintain speed. The idea here is a very simple gearing mechanism that would fit between the rear wheel and the frame. The rear wheels can be controlled as usual by the pushrim, but after you drop in and gain some speed, the rpm based clutch will engage the free wheel gear. Then using the handles, users can continue to build speed by spinning the the gears. The gear ratio will allow for more aggressive speeds that would be impossible to reach by just pushing the wheels. At anytime the user would be able to grab the pushrims to control the chair as usual. The mechanism itself would be no more complicated than that on a bmx bike, and would allow users to customize gear ratios for specific tricks and terrain.
The actual placement and form of this concept has yet to be realized, but will be designed for limited interference with the user.
Sorry for the crude illustrator sketch!!!
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