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Oct 15, 2006

"It is curious that with the advent of the automobile and the airplane, the bicycle is still with us. Perhaps people like the world they can see from a bike, or the air they breathe when they're out on a bike. Or they like the bicycle's simplicity and the precision with which it is made. Or because they like the feeling of being able to hurtle through air one minute, and saunter through a park the next, without leaving behind clouds of choking exhaust, without leaving behind so much as a footstep." --Gurdon S. Leete

Disabled Cyclist Inspires Ghana

In Ghana, West Africa, babies born with disabilities are routinely poisoned or left to die alone; those who survive face a lifetime of begging on the streets. Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah, however, had a different plan: born with a malformed right leg, he shined shoes for $2 a day and refused to accept his country's superstitious shunning of the disabled. On a bicycle supplied by the California-based Challenged Athletes Foundation, using only his left leg, Emmanuel rode almost 380 miles across Ghana and discovered his mission: to improve the lives of the roughly two million disabled Ghanaians. Now able to stand on two feet (thanks to an operation and a high-tech prosthetic, Emmanuel works vigorously to ensure that opportunities are available to all physically challenged Ghanaians.