Joanna Vogel

Bob Vogel powers up California's American River Canyon

Take the One-Off all-terrain handcycle—a low-slung mountain bike built by Mike Augspurger, who's crafted custom bikes for the last decade. "It is a bike you wear," says Bob Vogel, 40, a paraplegic hang-glider pilot who has owned a One-Off for nearly two years. "It's opened up a whole new backcountry world." A mere 33 inches wide—and tricked out with Schlumpf Mountain Drive transmissions, plus a titanium handlebar and sternum support—the 35- to 50-pound, $4,500 trike is narrow enough to navigate many singletrack mountain bike trails.

This winter, altitude-inclined supercrips will doubtlessly covet the SnowPod—a miniature tank designed for mountaineering by Peter Rieke, 46, who was paralyzed from the waist down six years ago in a climbing accident on Washington's Index Town Wall. Last June, he cranked his way up 14,410-foot Mount Rainier while strapped into his cat-tracked, yellow-tubed SnowPod, signaling a new high in wilderness access for the disabled. Rieke invested $25,000 and nearly five years welding and bending steel to create the Pod, and his success on Rainier won him a $32,000 grant from the Arthur B. Schultz Foundation to build four more. Weighing in at 65 pounds, the 49-speed vehicle will handily climb a 45-degree slope. Touts the Web site for Rieke's Pod-building company, Mobility Engineering: "Looks cool, chicks dig it." —Misty Blakesley