Adjustability
“If they could figure out how to make a bike adjustable for the pro team…they might have a thing or two to contribute.”
An ongoing frustration for people who use wheelchairs is the need to find that perfect fit in order to make sure that the equipment that they rely on is optimized for their body type (which often changes over time), and level of use (from mild to wild).
The ‘fit’ of a chair can be broken down into a few different elements, is the chair sized correctly, is the chair geometry correct for the user, and are there going to be any changes over time (short term or long term) that will affect the measurements of the chair.
Recognizing that getting all the measurements right is an enormously difficult thing to do, even for people who are acquiring their second or third chairs, we made the decision in the design stage to create a chair that would allow as much adjustability as possible without compromising performance or weight.
The Marvel chair is sized in small, medium, and large sizes, when taken in the context of the adjustability of the chair, this accomplished two things, it lets us take the guesswork out of the fitting of the chair, and it allows us to manufacture our frames using the best tube forming technology available. (For more information on tube shapes and forming technology, see our section on Formed Tubes).
We paid an enormous amount of attention to making sure that the adjustability wouldn’t add weight, or risk parts coming loose. Because of our partnership with Cervélo Cycles, we turned to them for advice on how to make our chair as adjustable as their bikes, our thinking being that if they could figure out how to make a bike adjustable enough for the pro team that won the Tour de France this year, they might have a thing or two to contribute.
Cervélo is the only bike manufacturer in the world who does not make a custom bike for any of their professional riders, the riders all ride stock bikes, using the geometry and adjustability built into the frames in the design phase to get the perfect fit.
If they could figure out how to make a bike adjustable for the pro team…they might have a thing or two to contribute.
