Ransom "Wheelz" Heth has been knees-in-the breeze on Harley Davidsons for 40 years. This includes the 25 years he's been paralyzed. "Sat down" by a 1979 motorcycle crash, Heth, a T5 para, stayed off bikes for a little over a year---the time it took him to adapt a trike, a three-wheel motorcycle.
  His first time back on a motorcycle, Heth, 24, returned to the crash site, about 12 miles from his home. "I had to go through the same set of corners again before I rode anywhere else," he says, "It was heavy duty, but it felt good too," he says in a slow drawl. "Feeling that wind in my face, it blows all the cobwebs out of my mind."
  Getting back on a bike was vital for Heth, so he figured it would help other disabled bikers too. Heth runs the Chariot-R-Trikes business out of his home in rural Michigan. Heth was inspired to start the business after he took his trike to the 1988 Sturgis Bike Week in South Dakota, the largest yearly motorcycle rally in the country. "I met lots of paralyzed guys who wanted a bike like mine," Heth says, "On the way home I thought about all these guys....If there's a reason that I sat down, it's to help these guys out."
  In the last three years, Heth's business has helped over 60 clients trick up or repair their bikes.He also has built three adapted trikes and a sidecar unit---all for free. "I know of 12 guys who have created trikes for themselves and another 140 who want trikes," Heth says. The main problem, of course, is funding. Heth is always looking for donations and "brothers" to help with the work. "I started working on Harleys at 5 or 6 and I've been riding since I was 8 years old," says hog-riding Heth, who was born into the third generation of motorcycle riders in his family. Even as a kid, he knew he wanted to ride for the rest of his life.
 Following his accident, however, Heth's doctor said he had good news and bad news. The good news was Heth's broken wrist would heal in six weeks; the bad news was he would never ride
a motorcycle again. Fourteen months later, Heth, dressed to kill in black leather, came back to visit the same doctor on his new trike.
 Now he wants to share with other "downed brothers" the feeling of pavement rolling away and nothing but the open road ahead. As his motto says, "The road never ends, only your dreams do."
 Getting paralyzed men back on Harleys may sound like an unorthodox dream, but Heth has always done things a little differently. When he was sent to a rehabilitation center, for instance, he didn't stay long. "People in rehab treat spinal cord injured like they have a head injury," Heth says. Tired of doing half hour exercises twice a day in rehab, he left the center against his doctor's wishes. He went home and exercised all day the way he wanted. "It took eight years to become completely independent," says Heth, whose mother and sister helped him out in the first several years.
  Over the years, he has adapted his house, located on an acre in the country to suit his needs. Heth, who is now married, survives on Social Security. He also raises black German Shepherds, using the money to pay for property taxes and firewood.
  Much of his time, however, is spent on his dream of helping brothers like him who "sat down." Heth works in the winter building trikes and crating new designs. His summer months are spent promoting the business' cause and raising money at runs to buy equipment for trikes. Heth says every time he goes to a run, people swarm around his 19-foot long, 4,200 pound trike named "Bad To the Bone."
  Heth will continue with his ride-to-live, live-to-ride mission, because, he says he's in to it for life. "I've got a lot of pride in what I'm doing," says Heth, "I'm going to do it or die trying."

Thanks to Spinal Network for this profile

Copyright © 2003 Chariot-R-Trikes,
Ransom Manufacturing Co. and Brotherhood Mobility Fund
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