My little boy has cerebral palsy and is due to have a bike assessment

[jake0711]

Hello there, i have a six year old boy called jake who has spastic diplegia but is more weak on the left side. I have already posted questions on here regarding a special needs bike but i had nt spoke to any professionals about it. I now have and i have to take him for a bike assessment on the 2th of this month but i ve got no idea what it entails. Can anyone help at all, thanks, lesley xxxxx

Hi, no idea what a bike assesment is but we got a kitten tricycle funded through charities for my daughter who has cerebral palsy. The trike was from 'Quest 88' if you want to have a look.

dd2 had a kitten as well (she has athetoid cp orig dx spastic quad)

if it's an assessment with one manufacturer they'll just try him on one of their models with diff attachments (some have full chest support/ pelvic support/ afos etc - parent handle/ steering mechanism etc etc)

quest 88 are v good - the kitten will be too small for him now - it'll be a colt i think? anyway, dd2 has a trailrider low now (i think...) it's ace anyway, and she can get on and off it herself.

essentially a lot depends on strength and co-ordination (ie can he manage to brake with hands/ three sorts of pedal/ gear system etc)

tomcats are supposed to be good too - but they were having a lot of supplier issues a while back - think now resolved.

just turn up, really. the demo guys are usually v good.

like someone else said, just turn up. They'll have a bike for your son to try and then they'll discuss what he needs. We've recently picked up our Tomcat, it's brilliant - no supplier issues that I am aware of, it took just less that the 6 weeks they told us it would take to make it.

yonks ago when we had one, we went along and tried out a couple of trikes(got a kitten I think)

if you are anywhere near bolton, lancashire there is an exhibition on thursday november 25th called "kidz up north" and it is a large place filled with everything needed for any child with any disability with various reps from lots of different companies that are all very knowledgeable with their products-imho it is well worth a visit.
we managed to take dd (shortly after her diagnosis) and tried her on some different trikes and the reps helped inform parents of which charities would fund different equipment and through their knowledge we applied for funding-got it and then used the funding to get dd a trike that we had tried at kidz up north and it had all the special adaptions on that she needed.