Published: September 12, 2008 10:42 pm            

PEOPLE PROFILE: Loretta Robinson back in driver's seat in custom bike

SANBORN — Going from a Towne to a Trek made all the difference for Loretta Robinson.

Thanks to a simple switch facilitated by a US&J reader and Burt’s Bikes & Fitness store, Robinson is back on her bike and is no longer confined to home by disability.

“I’m a little out of shape, but I’m enjoying myself so much,” she said this week. “I know I won’t fall. I can pedal at an easier pace and take in the scenery. It’s beautiful.”

Robinson, 59, was the subject of a mid-July Saturday People Profile detailing her frustrating attempts to find a bicycle that she could ride safely.

Due to spinal deterioration, Robinson hasn’t been able to walk more than a few yards without a walker for years — but for reasons even her doctor doesn’t understand, she could pedal a bike effortlessly. Twelve miles a day was her standard as recently as three years ago, when she took part in her ninth consecutive Ride For Roswell.

Robinson’s ailment is progressive, however, and the time finally came for her to give up her standard 20-speed in favor of something that would carry her misaligned frame more safely. Finding the right bike hasn’t been easy.

An adult three-wheeler seemed like the sensible thing, but after Robinson purchased one from Burt’s Bikes & Fitness she found the banana handlebars were too unwieldy. It took some persistence on her part, she said, but she persuaded the owner to let her trade in the tricycle for another special model.

The Towne looked like a sensible alternative — it had two wide wheels for stability and a low seat so she could sit and still put her feet on the ground — but it turned out to be even more unwieldy. In early July, Robinson was out riding the Towne, struggling to control its wheels, when she ended up in a ditch.

Embarrassed and frightened, Robinson gave up trying to master that bike and turned to the community. She wanted referrals to any custom bike makers in the area, or some ideas how to refit the Towne to her needs, since she felt she couldn’t ask Burt’s for another trade-in deal.

Robinson said a Lockport collision shop offered to add training wheels and/or adjust the Towne’s handlebars; an employee consulted with her on several occasions, she said, but the adaptations didn’t seem like they’d work.

Three others who’d learned her story called Robinson with the names of specialty bike and fitness businesses from North Tonawanda to Rushford, “but the ones I could get to didn’t have anything different than I’d already tried,” she said. “People tried to help ... but nothing panned out.”

More than a month after her appeal was published, Robinson had grown resigned to the idea there was no help for her when she got a call from Jim Costello, the product manager of Burt’s Bikes & Fitness.

Costello told Robinson that his boss had been handed a copy of the story and passed it on to him with instructions to see what the store could do to put her back on the road. He told her about a brand new adaptive model, the three-wheeled Trek, and talked her into coming to the Tonawanda store to try it out.

Robinson said she rode the Trek in the store parking lot and felt good about it immediately.

“The handlebars were so much better,” she said. “The seat is more upright, the wheels in back aren’t as wide and it’s easier to pedal. ... It’s much, much better.”

Burt’s Bikes let Robinson return the Towne for trade-in value, so the Trek cost her about $100 out of pocket. Costello made some adjustments, added a few accessories and personally delivered the bike to Robinson’s home, free of charge.

“Loretta’s determination to ride again, despite her physical problems, is admirable,” Costello said. “I wish there were more people like that.”

Robinson has taken about a half-dozen solo trips on her Trek now and finds that, other than having to learn wider turning, about the only adjustment she’s had to make is attitudinal. There are no more 12-mile-a-day rides in her future, she concedes, because her body just can’t go that distance any more — and that’s OK.

“I’m going about 2 miles in an hour,” she said. “It’s nothing like I used to do, but I’m just so tickled pink that I’ve been able to get out again, I’m learning to just be happy with what I can do.”

Contact reporter Joyce Miles at 439-9222, ext. 6245.

        

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