Suspension
“Until now, there have been a lot of good reasons not to put suspension on a wheelchair…”
There’s a really good reason why almost every wheeled vehicle has suspension, ride quality. Nobody would argue that on a long trip, the more comfortable the ride, the more pleasant the trip will be.
Suspension has everything to do with how pleasant the trip is. Without it, every little bump and irregularity is felt, for people who use a vehicle (like a wheelchair) for a significant part of their day, that gets old fast. When suspension is used in wheelchair applications, it’s been proven to decrease spasms and reduce general feelings of discomfort and pain.
Until now, there have been a lot of good reasons not to put suspension on a wheelchair, done with out-of-date technology, suspension can be very heavy, and there are some situations where it’s not ideal for a wheelchair to have suspension.
Marvel has changed all that.
A lot of manufacturers have tried to make a wheelchair with suspension, with some mixed success, some have used coil over shocks, others rubber blocks in between the axle and the seat. There are a number of hurdles that have yet to be overcome: the weight penalty that suspension brings to the equation, the difference in rider weight, the way caster angle changes as the suspension compresses and expands, and personal preference in how much or how little suspension someone wants (which could change from day to day, or minute to minute depending on what the day holds), and most importantly, the ability to not have suspension at times when you don’t want it.
At Marvel, we use the best available technology to suspend our seat platform, which is also done independently of the drive train (front and rear wheels).
We use a Rogue shock that was custom modified from a mountain bike shock. It only weighs 180g (a bit less than a half pound). It adjusts for rider weight from 90lbs to 225lbs using a shock pump (provided with every Marvel chair, and available at any bike shop that sells mountain bikes) that allows the rider to increase or decrease the amount of air in the chamber, and it has an independent adjustment for rebound and compression, so the rider can choose how quickly or slowly the shock works in both directions.
The Rogue shock also has a lockout, so if you’re carrying something heavy up a ramp, or want to put every single ounce of energy into your wheels, with a flip of the switch, the shock essentially becomes a solid bar, removing all of the suspension from the chair.
Now you can choose not only when and where you want suspension, but how plush or solid the ride is, with an infinite amount of choice between the extremes.
