Positive Changes hits the road!
   
Positive Changes and Lehman Trikes hits the road with all three wheels at the Love Ride in Pomona, CA November 2007. Lehman Trikes has made it possible for people with disabilities who have the love of riding a motorcycle of two wheels safer on three and tailored to their specific needs.




Rick and Michelle Bradley pull out of the Lehman Trikes factory lot in Spearfish, SD, hauling their friend Rick Davidson, a quadriplegic who loves motorcycling. Lehman donated the trike conversion.
(Photo by Bill Harlan, Journal staff)

Newspaper Article:
Obtained from the Rapid City Journal, Rapid City, South Dakota

Trike makes rally easier for quadriplegic
Sturgis Motorcycle Rally 2007
By Bill Harlan, Journal staff

STURGIS -- I met Rick Davidson in Spearfish on Wednesday, in time to watch him and his 500-pound motorized wheelchair get strapped onto a small flatbed trailer behind a motorcycle trike.

Rick was breathing through a ventilator, and an aide was applying sunblock to his face, arms and legs. He can't do either for himself.

For 20 years, Rick has been a "C2-3" quadriplegic - the same injury level as the late Christopher Reeve, who was a friend of Rick's.

At age 21, with a couple of national drag-racing championships under his belt, Rick rode his motorcycle into an illegally parked pickup truck.

He wasn't supposed to live, but he did, with the help of friends Rick and Michelle Bradley. Davidson and Rick Bradley have known each other since junior high school in Olathe, Kan., where they still live. Michelle is a nurse. The Bradleys and other family and friends keep Davidson out of a nursing home.

Still, by 2003 Rick's life was stalled.

"All he did was sit out on the driveway with friends or watch TV," Michelle said.

The Bradleys decided to take Davidson to Sturgis. They even strapped him onto the back of their Harley-Davidson Ultra Classic for a ride through Spearfish Canyon.

This is not the ideal way to ride with a quadriplegic, so the next year Rick Bradley built his friend a trailer. They've been to Sturgis every year since.

In 2005, the Bradleys hauled Rick behind their Harley on a 16-day, 6,500-mile cross-country odyssey to promote home care -- which is much cheaper but sometimes not covered by insurance.

That led to a meeting with President Bush and federal legislation to change disability rules.

The Bradleys also formed their own nonprofit company, Positive Changes, to help families solve similar problems.

During last year's Sturgis rally, the Bradleys noticed the Lehman Trikes factory, just off Interstate 90 in Spearfish. A light bulb went off. Pulling the wheelchair trailer would be much easier if the Harley had three wheels.

Long story short, Lehman converted the Bradley's Harley into a trike with all the extras -- a donation worth more than $10,000.

Rick Davidson rode behind the trike for the first time Wednesday afternoon.

Rick speaks haltingly, on the exhale, but he's articulate. His friends give him freedom and mobility, he said, and motorcycling gives him joy. His visibility is limited in his special van. "Imagine you're wearing a baseball cap pulled down over your eyes, with your head down," he said.

On the trailer, he's got a view.

"And the smells!" he said. "The pine trees!"