Bikes For The Elderly

Thanks for the mention.

I did build my dad a bike.

He suffers from Parkinson's but has always been a keen cyclist and used to race and we trained together when I was a child.
But he lost confidence and balance as his illness got worse.

The bike is a Surly Crosscheck I converted to disc brakes and 650b.

My experience is that in order to inspire confidence and cycling ability you need:

• hydraulic disc brakes
  
• low bottom bracket
  
• big tyres
  
• low toptube
  
• bars level with saddle position (not much higher and not any lower / comfort is king)
  
• good fit
  
• big grippy pedals
  
  

AND I had to fit a dropper seatpost because Parkinson's fucks with the ability to get on a bike and he refused to have a dropped seattube. It was very important for him that the bike didn't look any different.