GRIT Blog and Knowledge Base

If you’ve started researching hiking wheelchairs for yourself or a loved one, you know the decision can be far from easy. While you wrestle through options like manual vs. power vs. hybrid, three wheels vs. four wheels vs. no wheels at all, and more, the question remains: How do you find the right hiking wheelchair?

Part of what makes the decision so difficult is that a specific hiking wheelchair could be perfect for one person but be inappropriate for someone else. When considering a hiking wheelchair, it is important to understand as many of the pros and cons of each option as possible—and that’s what brings us here today. Our goal is to shed light on the pros and cons of both manual and electric hiking wheelchairs so you can make your selection and get to the trailhead!

Manual All-Terrain Wheelchairs for Hiking

Manual hiking wheelchairs like the GRIT Freedom Chair often rely on the strength of a rider and/or assister to propel the chair forward. Because these chairs are person-powered rather than battery-powered, they tend to prioritize ergonomics, efficient propulsion, and transportability. After all, if you’re going to be loading your chair into your car, pushing your chair to and beyond the trailhead, and then load it back into the car when you’re done, you’re going to want an easy-to-use, energy-efficient device. Below are some of the reasons why a manual hiking wheelchair might be an attractive option.

Functional & Compelling Fitness

One of the most obvious advantages to manual hiking wheelchairs is that they provide a fantastic workout. We won’t try to convince you of the advantages of good, physical exercise (read more here if you’d like—movement and fitness have always been cornerstones to health. However, whether you’re a full-time or part-time wheelchair user, the advantages of manual wheelchair hiking can extend even further.

First, hiking in a manual wheelchair strengthens muscles key to everyday wheelchair use. Daily wheelchair users engage muscles in their hands, arms, shoulders, chests, backs, cores, and elsewhere, and wheelchair hiking of course engages the same muscle groups…often with increased resistance. Trail materials like gravel, dirt, and snow can increase drag/friction on your chair, so pushing through them will require some extra strength. Pushing through these tougher terrains and materials can have the same effect as turning up the resistance on a stationary bike. After conquering a tough trail under your own power, wheeling through the supermarket, mall, or down the sidewalk may feel like a breeze.

Second—and with a formal apology to all of the gym rats out there—let’s face the facts: The gym can be, well, boring. If you’ve ever rolled up to a dumbbell (or a kettlebell, or resistance band, etc.) and thought something along the lines of I just don’t care to lift this 30 times, you aren’t alone! Wheelchair hiking offers you the opportunity to get the heck outside—away from the stuffy gym, the body-odor-scented air of a weight room, and the stale repetition of weight training—where fitness doesn’t always feel like fitness.

Hikers in manual wheelchairs get to focus on the efficiencies of their pushes, on the crisp and clean air around them, on tactically choosing the perfect line, and they get to experience life at a different speed. Manual wheelchair hikers aren’t sitting stationary while a battery does all of the work. Hiking can (and often does) provide an outright beautiful setting for a workout. We can’t always say the same for the sweat-covered rubber tundra of a weight room.

Hiking with Friends

Another upside to hiking with a manual wheelchair is the opportunity it provides for teamwork and, more broadly, hiking with others. The “teamwork” portion of this will make sense for any wheelchair user—sometimes, a little push goes a long way, especially on a trail. Public trails are sometimes built or maintained without wheelchair users in mind, meaning trail width, incline, cross-slope, and the potential for obstructions in the path are all potential issues. Even trails built under strict ADA compliance can be susceptible to felled trees, washouts, and more, so having a friend join you can be a huge help. While some manual wheelchair hikers choose to go it themselves, a vast majority opt to bring one or more people with them. Depending on the hike, you may even enlist a rope team.

If bringing a friend or family member becomes standard practice when hiking, this is where the real fun begins! With a partner assisting you by pushing or pulling your manual hiking wheelchair, you significantly open up the possibilities for your hike. Not only will you be able to go farther together than you would have otherwise gone alone, but you’ll have someone who can enjoy the hike with you. Here at GRIT, we think the only thing better than a stunning summit is enjoying that same summit with someone you love.

Yet another perk to hiking with a friend is your preparedness for the unexpected. Adaptive hiking can sometimes require a good amount of equipment, and another person can help distribute the load. Similarly, in the event a trail is damaged, destroyed, or just outright difficult, you’ll be able to work together to overcome the challenges of the trail.

Teamwork with the GRIT Freedom Chair

The levers of the GRIT Freedom Chair are independent of the drivetrain, which makes hiking with a friend easier and more possible than ever before. If you’re in the GRIT chair and have a person walking behind you to assist, you can:

• Propel the chair 100% under your own power and have your friend follow behind to support you when you request it.
• Have your friend do 100% of the pushing. Let the levers fall forward, hold them vertically at the most comfortable position for you, or store them in the storage sleeves built into every chair.
• Each put in as much effort as you’d like. If you are pushing/pulling the levers and contributing, say, 60% of the total pushing power, your friend can supplement the remaining ~40% by pushing without interrupting your momentum! No longer do you have to try and grab your already-spinning rear wheels; simply start pushing/pulling the levers when you are ready.

Manual wheelchairs are more efficient than ever before

The manual wheelchairs available today—especially those designed for hiking—aren’t your great-grandfather’s wheelchair! Wheelchair technology has come a long way from the cumbersome, hard-to-push, impossible-to-disassemble, uncomfortable chairs of olden times.

One of the most commonly asked questions about a manual hiking wheelchair is Am I strong enough to use it? This is of course an important question to ask since using a manual hiking wheelchair typically requires a bit of strength. However, hiking wheelchairs like the GRIT Freedom Chair have been intentionally designed to be as efficient as possible, ensuring you get the most out of every motion. Here are some of the ways modern, manual wheelchairs make the job of hiking a bit easier:

• Handcycle or hand-crank propulsion: This method of propulsion is most common on street chairs and downhill adaptive bikes, but it offers a big improvement from pushing on handrims. Because hand cranks use gearing systems, the flexibility to up- and down-shift saves riders a ton of energy. Hand cranks keep your hands away from the rear wheels (+1 for safety) and don’t always require grip strength to use. Many chairs with hand cranks have adaptations for riders with limited grip strength, too.
• Lever propulsion: Leverage is a simple way to dramatically improve the efficiency of a manual wheelchair. Here at GRIT, we believe so much in leverage that we’ve designed, employed, and patented our own lever-drive system. Our founders, mechanical engineers at MIT, prototyped and tested their way to the optimal lever drive system that is now more than twice as efficient as pushing on handrims. Similar to hand cranks, levers also keep your hands and arms away from the moving parts of the chair and are very easily adapted for folks with limited grip strength. Levers also allow riders to engage larger muscle groups than those used with standard chairs, so you can push longer, farther, and through more challenging terrains.
• Built for independence and teamwork: A manual hiking wheelchair should give you the option to easily transition between riding with and without assistance. Many folks want to propel solely under their own power, some want or need to be 100% assisted, but most prefer to make that decision in the moment. A hike’s difficulty can fluctuate dramatically over a very short distance, so being able to receive help when you want it can be huge. All GRIT Freedom Chairs, for example, are compatible with Trail Handles—tall and comfortable push bars at the rear of the chair that allow someone to comfortably push from behind. Headed toward a tougher hike in your GRIT chair? Attach a Rope Mount to the front to allow one or more people to pull from the front!

Weight and Size

Because manual hiking wheelchairs don’t have batteries, motor, fuel, electrical components, elaborate controls, or heavy frames to secure these parts, they are almost always lighter and smaller than their power wheelchair counterparts. Here’s where the weight and size of a manual hiking wheelchair can be game-changers:

• Weight: The comparatively low weight of manual hiking chairs—and their easy of disassembly—will make your hike easier in almost every way. Here is just a few examples:
  • Transportation. Anyone lacking superhuman strength with have a hard time loading a power chair into a vehicle by themselves. The alternative is to purchase a wheelchair-accessible vehicle (WAV) or a trailer for your vehicle, either of which can easily be more expensive than your wheelchair itself! Manual hiking chairs, on the other hand, usually weigh <50 pounds and can be disassembled so you’ll never have to lift their full weight.
  • Navigating the trail. Because they are so much lighter than power chairs, manual hiking chairs are often easier to maneuver, turn, accelerate, and decelerate. Power chairs are wonderful on flat straightaways, but that’s not typically the terrain you’re navigating when hiking. When you have to steer around rocks, roots, and whatever else a trail might lay before you, you’ll be glad to be in a lighter device.
  • Safety on the trail. Even well-groomed trails can come with some surprises! Side-slope, obstacles, other hikers, inclement weather, and more can make the experience more precarious than expected. Imagine this worst-case scenario: You’re rolling along in your power chair but the wheel or track beneath you gets snagged on a rock. You feel the chair beneath you start to tip toward the right. Before you realize it, you’re getting cozy with a pile of leaves and trying to figure out which way is up. Even if you’re hiking with a friend, how are you both going to upright your 300-pound chair? Manual hiking chairs—even when flipped—can usually be uprighted by the rider or with a small bit of assistance from a friend. With a manual hiking chair, get the wheels back on the ground, brush the dirt off your shoulders, and ride on!
• Size: Manual hiking wheelchairs are not only lighter than power or electric hiking wheelchairs; they’re much smaller in overall size, too. Here’s where this might help:

• Transportation. Any manual hiking chair worth its salt is going to be easily folded or disassembled so you can load it in and out of your vehicle. Unless you’re one of the lucky few with a trail system stemming from your own backyard, you’ll likely have to get yourself and your equipment to a park or trailhead. Save yourself the massive expense of a WAV with a manual hiking chair that can fit into any vehicle.
• Navigating outdoor spaces. Most trails are not built wide enough for power and electric wheelchairs. The recommended width of a trail for pedestrian use is just 36 inches, which is less than the width of many power wheelchairs on the market today. What do you do if another hiking comes along the trail? What if that other hiker is also in a wheelchair? Having a narrower, manual hiking wheelchair makes it far easier to get around the trails themselves.
• Indoor spaces. Even if you plan to be out on the trail for the day, there’s a good chance you’ll want to go indoors at some point. The bathrooms, the gift shop, some much-needed shelter from the elements, and perhaps even a post-hike refuel at a restaurant may be part of your experience. A manual hiking chair will allow you to go inside and outside with comparative ease.
• Storage. You may not use your hiking wheelchair every single day, and even if you do, you may want to store it when you’re not riding. Electric hiking wheelchairs can be difficult or impossible to disassemble, so you’d best have ample space to store it! One of the things GRIT Freedom Chair customers love about their chairs is that they are quick to disassemble, so whether you’re storing it in your garage, shed, or home, you can more easily find a good place for it.

“With an off-road wheelchair you can join friends for a barbecue picnic at the local park. Zip down the sidelines to cheer on your daughter playing soccer. Motor down cobblestone streets in the Old Town you’ve long sidestepped. Navigate to that perfect spot in a grassy field to watch fireworks explode overhead. Farmers markets, outdoor weddings, snowy streets, campsites, gravel driveways, vineyards, the works.”

—Dave, of ActiveMSers, from Going Off-Road: All Terrain Manual Wheelchairs

Price

One of the most significant differences between manual and electric wheelchairs is price. While both categories of all-terrain wheelchair have options spanning the range of prices, manual wheelchairs tend to cost less than half (sometimes less than that) of the price of anything with motors or electronics.

One of the best things about manual hiking wheelchairs is their simplicity, and that simplicity pays off (literally) in the amount it takes to purchase them. Without batteries, motors/engines, wiring, mountain brackets for all of the above.

The sticker price on any all-terrain wheelchair can be significant, and the price of power wheelchairs can be outright staggering, but it’s also worth considering the lifetime cost to own each kind of chair. The comparatively straightforward design of manual wheelchairs makes them much less expensive to maintain and repair—here at GRIT Freedom Chair, for example, we use mountain bike parts so most folks will only need to go to a bike shop for replacement parts. A complex power chair, however, will likely need to be repaired at a medical supply shop or at the original manufacturer—and the parts aren’t cheap! For example, at the time of this writing, a wheelchair battery can cost anywhere between $100-$400 alone (most power chairs use two of these batteries). The cost of replacing these parts will add up quickly.

Power & Electric Wheelchairs for Hiking

Power and electric wheelchairs can be fantastic hiking equipment. The large size, powerful batteries and motors, and breadth of supportive accessories and components make them an obvious choice for many. Here are some of the reasons why a power or electric hiking wheelchair might be an attractive option:

Less strength to operate.

A clear reason to select a power or electric wheelchair as your hiking chair is how comparatively easy they are to operate. Once you are seated in the chair, buckled in, any straps or harnesses are secure, and are ready to go, propelling these chairs typically requires use of a joystick or controller. These controllers are designed to be used by folks with limited hand function and can even be modified or swapped with alternative options that can be controlled with a rider’s mouth or breathing.

A controller or joystick can be a big win for steering and, similarly, traveling far distances. Whereas a manual hiking wheelchair will require you and/or your assister to be the sole source of power, motorized wheelchairs do that work for you. These days, power chairs can last about 8-10 hours on a full charge and can travel about 10 miles before needing to be recharged. Keep in mind, though, that these numbers fluctuate pretty drastically by the weight of the rider and the chair, the inclines/declines on your ride, and the speed at which you are traveling.

Consistent speed and motion.

The perpetual feed of power from an electric wheelchair’s batteries or motor often makes for a more consistent experience. If the trail starts to slope upward, power chair riders can regulate their speed with the joystick or controller and coast right up! A rider in a manual wheelchair will have to exert more effort and may have to adjust their body position to power up that same hill. This experience is identical on the other side of the hill, too, where a power chair rider can pull back on the joystick and rely on the electronic braking system; a manual chair user must slow their chair down under their own power. This may be particularly beneficial for folks with limited range of motion, core control, and sensitivity to vibrations.

Handling loose terrain.

Electric or power chairs for hiking can be the best option for anyone looking to travel over the two most troublesome terrains for wheelchair users: Deep sand and deep snow. While impressive-looking add-ons can make manual wheelchairs slightly better suited for sand/snow, the simple math is that loose sand can be brutal to navigate. To address this, some power wheelchairs got rid of the wheels entirely and instead, rest on treads not very dissimilar from those on a tank. These treaded chairs are big, mean, sand-eating machines that make light work of fine sand and snow alike. However, similar to manual wheelchairs with oversized, balloon-type tires, treaded power chairs don’t perform nearly as well on firmer surfaces, especially if you are looking to travel with speed.

Comfort features galore!

Many electric wheelchair models come with built-in features for extra comfort for their riders, such as adjustable seating, chest harnesses, trunk support, headrests, and even heated cushions. When these features are must-haves for the person riding the chair, an electric wheelchair or power wheelchair may be the best option.

Making the Decision: Consider a Demo

Often, the best way to know if a piece of adaptive equipment is right for you is to get your butt into one and try it! Once you’ve narrowed down your search, contact the manufacturer of your selected chair and ask about their return policy. They may even have a nearby ambassador who could give you a test ride. If that manufacturer doesn’t have an ambassador, retailer, or demo location nearby, they should offer something like the GRIT Guarantee to allow you to try the chair on your own turf. We at GRIT use this policy because it allowed you to use the wheelchair on your own turf, whether that “turf” is the trail, the sand, the grass, etc., and take your time doing so. This is far better, we think, than having to make a big decision after a high-pressure demo in a totally different setting (sometimes even indoors) than the ones you’ll actually be riding.

Making the Choice: Manual or Electric?

The wonderful (and possibly daunting) reality of this question is that there is no single, universal answer. Your desired type and location of hiking, your diagnosis or disability, and/or your budget may guide you in one direction, but there can still be a lot to learn.

No matter where you are on your search for a hiking chair, we at GRIT would seriously love to hear from you! We’ll of course be happy to chat with you about the GRIT Freedom Chair family, and if we aren’t the best option for you, we’ll help connect you with other options. Give us a call at 877-345-4748 or email us at info@gogrit.us whenever you’re ready. Happy trails!