Back then, wheelchairs were seen solely as medical equipment: uniformly gray, plain and unobtrusive.
“The mentality was, it’s about the person, not the chair,” Lasher says.
But wheelchairs, he felt, were ugly. And they didn’t suit the needs of Lasher, a lifelong athlete. People using wheelchairs had personalities, Lasher thought. So why couldn’t their chairs reveal something of the individual?
Six years ago Lasher, then a teacher with the Anchorage School District, began tinkering with a wheelchair design in his garage, enlisting a local machine shop to create some of the components. When he unveiled the shiny, brand-new chair he’d made, his father thought he’d gone out and bought it.
“That’s how I knew I had succeeded,” says Lasher.
In the six years since that first garage tinkering, Lasher has built Lasher Sport, crafting custom wheelchairs and handcycles that can roll on sandy beaches, ski on snowy mountaintops and careen terrifyingly fast down the slopes of the Swiss Alps. The chairs are also one of only a handful of products fully manufactured in Alaska, though Lasher does contract to Lower 48 firms for some processes. They are sold to clients all over the world – from Guam to Germany.
The chairs aren’t cheap – from around $5,000 to upwards of $10,000 for a custom chair.
Anything but medical-supply beige, they’re inspired by Orange County Choppers and mountain bikes, often tricked-out with chrome details that wouldn’t look out of place at a car show. They range from basic but sleek with vibrant oxidized colored aluminum – like a fresh custom car paint job – to fanciful, like one with a dragon motif that features gold and red details, fire-breathing dragon cutouts and a foot rest that looks like two gold coins.
They're meant to generate attention – in a good way.
One young man told Lasher of a cute girl that had actually crossed the street to admire his chair and ask about it.
Lasher Sport also makes wheelchairs designed for Nordic skiing, tennis, basketball and mountain handcycle riding. Right now Lasher is especially excited about the all-terrain handycle, like a mountain bike operated by upper body strength.
The idea: no trail, beach or mountain should be off-limits because you use a chair.
His clients seem to agree. Lasher Sport’s Facebook page is packed with photos chronicling adventures like a Nordic ski chair expedition at Denali’s Ruth Gorge. Others show treks around Scottish highland lakes, trips to Caribbean beaches and videos of handcyclists bouncing happily down rocky, steep trails in the Swiss Alps.
When people – often, these days, veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – call Lasher to discuss ordering a chair, they’re usually early into their injuries and depressed.
Sometimes, he says, they feel suddenly invisible. Or like the things they once loved to do are lost.
“They feel like they aren’t a member of society anymore,” Lasher says.
It doesn’t have to be that way, says Lasher from the sleek “everyday chair” he uses at the warehouse and at home.
“With the right chair,” he says, “You can go anywhere.”
