Ryan Beesley: Moto On

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="283"] Beesley sights in the track. Photograph courtesy of Laura Fonda Hochnadel.[/caption] Riding a dirt bike takes hand-foot coordination and a balance between throttle and clutch control. To get rolling from a standstill with the motor running, you squeeze the clutch lever with your left hand, use your left toes to bump the shifter down from neutral to first gear, and then slowly release the clutch while using your right hand to twist the throttle and give the bike some gas. If you let the clutch out too quickly without giving it enough gas, the bike will lurch forward and stall. But if you give it too much gas, the bike will pop a wheelie and you might get dumped off the back. To change from first to higher gears, the rider must again squeeze the clutch lever with his or her left hand and use the left toes to bump up the shifter to the next gear, all the while using the right hand to twist the throttle. Now, what happens with this process if, like Ryan Beesley, you have no left hand? His initial solution, he says, was to raise the clutch lever so it was sticking up, rather than on a more horizontal plane, so he could "smack it down with [his] nub" to shift. While not an ideal solution, it worked, but he still didn't have two hands to hold onto the handlebar. Beesley, 21, who lives in Flat Rock, Michigan, lost his left hand in a fireworks accident five years ago. He was shooting off mortars-launching shells out of a tube. One fell to the ground without exploding. After about 20 minutes, Beesley picked up the shell, and it exploded in his hand. He says that four weeks after he got out of the hospital-despite not having ridden much that prior year-he slung a leg over his brother's 125cc dirt bike and "started riding wheelies and stuff across the backyard. From that moment, I just knew I had to ride again," he says. A Community of Family and Friends For many, riding dirt bikes is a family sport. Beesley says he began riding a PW 50cc when he was five years old and began racing about a year later. His grandfather used to ride a dirt bike, and both his father and brother ride. "I basically grew up on a dirt bike or a four-wheeler," Beesley says. Additionally, local motocross communities are on the small side compared to other sports, and everyone seems to know each other, at least peripherally, so when a rider is injured, word travels fast. For Beesley, it was through the motocross community that he found his current prosthetist, Lawrence Michael (Mike) Bugg, CPO, CPed, CEO of Orthotech Prosthetics & Orthotics, headquartered in West Branch, Michigan. Bugg's son, Michael, is a former professional motocrosser, and Beesley and Michael have a friend in common; it was through this mutual friend that Beesley came to Bugg's attention. "Bugg heard [about my accident] through the grapevine, through the motocross community, and he actually contacted me," Beesley recalls. Bugg referred Beesley to his cousin who is a practitioner at a large O&P company near Beesley's home. There, he was fitted with a body-powered prosthetic hook. About 18 months after his accident, Beesley made the two-and-a-half-hour drive to see Bugg, who had an idea for a prosthesis that would allow Beesley to hold on to the handlebar of his dirt bike. "I was pretty much riding in the yard, nothing serious for the first year," Beesley says. "Then I got the basic prosthetic made." It was a carbon fiber shell casting of his residual limb that plugs into a socket on the handlebars. "That thing was pretty crude. It had no padding on the inside. It was pretty much something that we could build now and be temporary and that would have a lot more function than riding with nothing." A year after that, Bugg devised a better solution using a ball-and-socket theory, Beesley recalls. "We made a prototype of that, and then we made a little bit better one, and then we had the one machined- the one that I'm using now. I can actually hold on." Beesley also modified his 2013 Honda CRF450 by moving the clutch lever to the right side and adding a Rekluse centrifugal clutch kit. With the Rekluse clutch, he still has to use his toes to shift but doesn't have to engage the clutch lever. "I have my clutch on the right side, and I pretty much use it on the hole shot, and then I never touch it again," Beesley explains. "I told [the Rekluse people] my story, and they hooked me up with a deal...." A Prosthetic Solution Devised Through Passion Bugg is a second-generation O&P practitioner with more than 28 years of official experience; he laminated his first leg when he was seven years old under the tutelage of his prosthetist father. "I'm more passionate about my field and my industry now than I've ever been," he says. And because Bugg rode motocross "for years and years and years," he says, he understands the biomechanics involved and was able to put that knowledge to work to design Beesley's riding prosthesis. When riding a dirt bike, you're supposed to stand up a majority of the time, except while cornering or braking, with weight bearing on the foot pegs. This positioning allows the rider to shift body weight as needed to be proactive to changing terrain; additionally, the bike handles better and the rider expends less energy with the legs acting somewhat like shock absorbers and the arms like forks. "[Y]ou squeeze with your knees and kind of float with your hands a little bit," Bugg explains. "You shift your body to the side and keep your hands stationary and you go back and forth. That is the wrist movement that you need. If you lean back or lean forward, you need a little less [movement] but you still need some interior, posterior, up, and down movement, the same with medial-lateral [movement].... I just tried to duplicate as much natural movement as we could." He also casted Beesley when he was on his dirt bike to ensure proper positioning. [caption id="" align="alignright" width="523"] Top left: Beesley rails a corner. Top right: The prototype riding prosthesis Bugg devised. Center: A close-up look at the current riding prosthesis Beesley uses. Bottom: From left, Beesley and Michael Bugg at the starting gate of a race. Photographs courtesy of Beesly.[/caption] Bugg fitted Beesley with a suction suspension socket, and on the end of the socket is a male four-bolt socket adaptor with a metal ball welded onto it. The ball clamps into a receiver on the handlebar. The system uses "an automatic spring tension breakaway, where you can either lock it 100 percent or you can make it fall off and everything in between," Bugg explains. It took trial and error to get the tension correct and for Beesley to get used to the device, which included him taking a few spills off the bike, because "it wasn't the same as hanging on with two hands," Bugg says. "[I]t's about the most aggressive that you could possibly get as far as being concerned about the attachment of the arm to a motocross bike.... [It's about keeping] him safe, and so far things have worked out just wonderful." For the past three years, Beesley has extensively tested all iterations of the riding prosthesis that he has been fitted with; he rides most weekends, weather permitting. "It's fun to load up the bike and go to the track with all your friends," he says. "I like that you're competitive, not only against everyone else but also yourself. You're always trying to better yourself...." In addition, Bugg introduced him to the Extremity Games' adaptive motocross racing, and Beesley has also been racing non-adaptive venues with plans to race more in the future. Beesley and his prosthesis have survived crashes, mud, and dust. "I like Bugg as a prosthetist because he isn't afraid to try new things," Beesley says. "It is a pretty ambitious task to try and build a prosthetic that can stand up to the abuse moto puts on your body."

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Ryan Beesley: Moto On

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Related posts:

OPAF First Swing Clinics Held in Idaho

The “New” Pelite Liner: The Duralite Liner

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O&P JOBS

Certified Prosthetist/Orthotist (CPO)

Now Hiring: Certified Prosthetist Orthotist (CPO)

ABC Certified Orthotic Fitter / Orthotic Assistant

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