St. Charles shop sponsors wounded veterans in bike ride

Finding new ways to exercise and stay fit has been a challenge since Dan Casara came home from the Iraq War.

The 34-year-old Army sergeant suffered multiple foot and leg fractures in a roadside bomb attack that killed two of his comrades on Sept. 23, 2005. Since then, he's had more than 20 surgeries and logged "countless hours" of intense physical therapy.

While Casara has managed to graduate from wheelchair to crutches to walking cane in the last three years, the former baseball player said his lingering limited mobility doesn't fit his athletic nature.

"It's frustrating," said Casara, of University Park. Before the injury, "I was an athlete. I played any sport I could get my hands on."

Fortunately, hands were all Casara needed to get moving again Thursday when he was fitted for a custom hand cycle at the Bike Rack in St. Charles.

Casara is one of about 10 disabled Illinois veterans being sponsored in the national Wounded Warrior Project's Soldier Ride by Bike Rack owner Hal Honeyman's nonprofit group, Project Mobility. Honeyman, whose 15-year-old son Jacob has cerebral palsy, started the organization about five years ago to offer adaptive cycling camps, clinics and workshops for disabled children and adults across the country.

This year, Project Mobility is fitting several veterans with adaptive bikes they will use for the Wounded Warrior ride, an eight-segment journey for severely wounded veterans that takes place across the country. Riders who visited St. Charles are traveling the Illinois stretch, from Channahon to Ottawa, today, then set course for the Middle East Conflicts Wall in Marseilles, Ill., on Saturday.

Honeyman said his group is working especially hard for veterans these days because he's seeing an increasing number of soldiers who are amputees or have other physically disabling wounds.

"Many of these people have limited or no mobility and probably thought they could never ride a bike again," he said. "It's just one sense of normalcy we can bring to their lives.

Johannes Porstmann, an eight-year employee of Honeyman's, said the bicycle industry has come a long way in its ability to adapt. The market is filled with a variety of three-wheeled bikes that are adapted specifically for paraplegics, one-limb amputees and riders with other disabilities. They generally cost $3,000 or more and can be adjusted to fit specific needs.

"It's all very much on an individual basis," Porstmann said.

For 26-year-old Corey Petersen of Naperville, the trick was finding a harness that would hold her slim frame to the seat behind her so she could get enough leverage to crank herself forward by hand.

Petersen, a retired Marine Corps. staff sergeant, was paralyzed below the chest in a devastating snowmobiling accident in Wisconsin two winters ago. She became interested in adaptive cycling after attending a sports camp that offered canoeing, cycling and camping for people with disabilities, she said.

Petersen's husband Brad, who also serves in the Marine Corps. as a 2nd lieutenant, said the couple received a grant to pay for the $3,500 bike she was trying out Thursday.

As Petersen cruised through the parking lot for the first time, her husband said he was happy to see her having fun.

"There's two things to do: You either sit on the couch or you get up and get out," he said, smiling. "That's her thing."

It's Casara's thing, too.

"It's important I keep my life going so I'm not locked in a box or in a place where woe is me," he said, resting on his bike in the shade. "This just makes life continue to move forward."

To learn more about Project Mobility, call (630) 762-9807 or go to www.projectmobility.org. For the Wounded Warrior Project, visit www.woundedwarriorproject.org.