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xnx10/01/20243 repliesview on HN

Is it totally different? Bikes are made and adjusted for a huge variety of body types. I understand there are different needs for wheel chair users, but I would think some level of adjustment would be possible to accommodate most of those.


Replies

dghlsakjg10/01/2024

You have to think about scale too. A run of bike frames in a particular size, even for the high end, is probably four digits for a very niche customer. The cost of jigs and prototyping is well spread out.

For a given wheelchair, the market is probably an order of magnitude smaller, if not more so. That means that factory setup and development costs that amortize to $X00 for a bike produced in the thousands, balloons to $X,000 for a wheelchair.

diebeforei48510/02/2024

Here is what a wheelchair order form looks like: https://www.adaptivespecialties.com/PDF/TiLite_AeroZ_series2...