Driven: One Man’s Dream
of Riding Motorcycle Again
Dudley Hansen shares his story
by Michelle Lyon
Dudley Hansen loves driving motorcycle.
“It’s nice to feel the wind whistle past ya,” he
said.
But for over 25 years, after a farm
accident took the use of his legs, it was an experience he could
only live in memory. Since he could no longer depend on his legs
to provide balance, Hansen relinquished his two-wheeled freedom for
the confinement of a car. But he couldn’t
ignore his desire to get back on a motorcycle.
“You’re right out there in the open, you’re looking
right at the ground. It’s a big sense of mobility and freedom,” he
said.
That quarter century of desire eventually
gave birth to a plan. With the rough idea of a three-wheeled trike
in mind, Hansen contacted his
“. . . the Liberator, comes
from humble beginnings. ‘Basically, to be quite honest
with you, we backed Dudley up on a chair . . . in front of
the engine and chalked it out on the floor,’ Kallhoff
said.”
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friend and owner of K & K
Motor Sports, Mark Kallhoff, to help him pound out the kinks.
“[Mark is] a pretty good mechanic and all, so if we put our
heads together we can pretty much do anything we need to do,” he
said.
Kallhoff agreed, and as he worked through the design and fabrication
of the unique vehicle, he began to see its potential.
“It offered to the public a motorcycle trike that had options
that did not exist on other styles,” he said.
He saw the trike’s value for riders of all abilities. Indeed,
before Hansen’s trike was even complete, Kallhoff was pursuing
the idea of marketing them to the public. That idea is slowly becoming
reality. He recently launched www.liber atortrikes.com, a Web site
through which he hopes to begin answering questions and, eventually,
taking orders.
“Currently, we are set up to manufacture five trikes at a time,” Kallhoff
said.
As with any new endeavor, the trike, aptly named the Liberator, comes
from humble beginnings.
“Basically, to be quite
honest with you, we backed Dudley up on a chair . . . in front of the
engine and chalked it out on the floor,” Kallhoff
said.
That’s where the real challenges
started. The engine was in the back.
“We’re certainly not the first one to come up with the
idea of a rear-engine trike,” Kallhoff said. “Volkswagon
had this concept, but they often had problems with front end balance—they
were too light in the front end.”
While both men saw this as a significant issue, moving the engine
to the front was not an option.
“It was important to both Dudley and I that the bike gave you
the feel that you were riding a conventional motorcycle,” said
Kallhoff. “With this design you’re right up there just
like you would be with the conventional handle bars.”
With a little bit of creative engineering on the front end, they found
the stability they were looking for, but not at the expense of maneuverability.
“If you really wanted to pull a wheelie with it you could,” Kallhoff
said.
Stability and integrity would be useless,
however, if they couldn’t
get the bike started. They had taken the engine for the prototype from
a 2000 Pontiac Grand Prix and encountered a problem they weren’t
prepared for.
“The computer [in the engine] thought you were trying to steal
the car because you didn’t have a key. So, the computer had
to be reprogrammed.”
With experience building specialized
vehicles and fabricating racecars, Kallhoff has seen a lot, but trial
and error took on a whole new meaning as they tried to find the way
around the computer’s configuration.
“There was a certain learning curve on that,” he
admitted.
Once they conquered the engine, there were many details the men had
to consider if they were going to make the trike accessible.
“It had to work for Dudley
in terms of heights and where he wanted to place his chair, and the
ability to fuel up, get on and off of it with the amount of ease you
could expect,” said Kallhoff.
Hansen knew he couldn’t travel
without his wheelchair, so having a way to transport it was essential.
And he found that the design of the bike didn’t limit his options.
“There were different ideas about where to put the wheelchair.
There are different options a guy can go with on that,” he
said.
Eventually, the decision was made to
extend the frame slightly so his collapsible wheelchair fits neatly
behind the driver’s seat.
When someone wants to ride with him, the wheelchair space is replaced
by a platform seat.
Another crucial element to consider in the design was seating.
“That’s a big thing on a bike you straddle; you can’t
really sit on a Roho [wheelchair cushion] or anything,” Hansen
said.
That dilemma was solved when Kallhoff
employed his knowledge of racecars. A racecar seat provides full
upper body support, and frame rails on the floor ensure that the
driver’s feet will stay in place. The
design is ideal, as far as Hansen is concerned.
“It’s basically like you’re
sitting in your wheelchair.”
Kallhoff learned a lot while working
to customize Han-sen’s
trike, and has carried accessibility options even further as he continues
to tweak the design. The most recent versions have available options
to make transfers and wheelchair storage easier, with a few new features
that come standard.
“The seat moves forward and back, but also locks at 45 degrees
and 90 degrees from the forward angle,” he said.
Since he is a practical man, as well
as one who understands the importance of details and appearance,
Kallhoff said, “The entire profile
has been lowered for component accessibility and chrome polishing.”
Kallhoff is driven by the knowledge that he is filling a need.
“To date, to the best
of my knowledge, we are the only ones making a trike that specifically
addresses the needs of a [mobility impaired] rider.”
That makes it a worthwhile pursuit
in Kallhoff’s mind. “Being
able to help bring a quality of life to someone makes you forget the
challenges.”
When all is said and done, both men are satisfied to have been involved
in creating the first Liberator.
As Hansen enjoys his bike and looks
toward the impact his idea could have on others, he only has one
regret, “I should’ve done
it 20 years ago.” ![]()
