User experience wheelchair bike OPair - Marielle Klomp

Marielle Klomp and her family purchased the OPair wheelchair bike in 2018 to continue cycling with their youngest family member. Read more about the experiences of Family Klomp with the wheelchair bike OPair during their trip to National Park De Hoge Veluwe below.

Purchasing a special needs bike

Because our youngest son Jesse has a rare metabolic disease, Sjögren-Larsson Syndrome (SLS) we were forced to cancel our vacation in Italy.

With this condition, he also has ichthyosis, also known as fish scale disease or fish skin disease, which makes it difficult for him to sweat and therefore difficult to acclimate in Italy because the temperature can get very high there. Because of this, we have chosen to go on holiday in the Netherlands, near the Veluwe. (Not knowing that it got very hot in the Netherlands that summer).

Cycling with the wheelchair bike OPair

We have been using the OPair wheelchair bicycle for a while now. Because Jesse is unable to sit on his own due to SLS, cycling on a normal bicycle with a child's seat is not possible now. We have an OPair wheelchair bicycle in combination with a special buggy seat (Stingray, R82). Thank you for this combination! This allows us to cycle again! We cycle a lot to and from school to bring and pick up his brother and sister, but now we also take the bike on vacation. (The bike was brought by the grandparents with a trailer)

Cycling together thanks to a special needs bike

On our holiday we cycled from the campsite to the National Park the Hoge Veluwe. It was an hour of cycling, but with the beautiful weather and a nice stop for a good lunch, it was not too far at all, rather lovely. Once at the Hoge Veluwe we cycled bicycle route 1 and ate an ice cream at the tea house of the 'Jachthuis' and we enjoyed the beautiful view there.

Jesse had a wonderful time in front of the OPair wheelchair bike, I heard his cheerful little sighs. It was really a relaxing day for our family!

It was a great day for cycling!

But everything comes to an end and so we had to cycle back to the campsite. When we were just fifteen minutes on the road the sky got dark and it was raining cats and dogs. Fortunate for Jesse, he has a a big hood on his buggy and he stayed dry. The other kids had a lot of fun with their flowing colored ponchos. Fortunately, it cleared up after 10 minutes and we cycled ourselves dry again.

All in all, it was a very wonderful and relaxing day with the whole family! Thank you very much!