Paralyzed New Athens man wants to hit the road again

Riding a motorcycle is fun and liberating for Bob Reilly, even though he just putters around town and explores country roads.

The New Athens man has been largely paralyzed from the waist down since a diving accident in 1982. He has constant muscle pain and occasional spasms.

“I don’t hurt near as bad after I ride a bike for an hour,” said Reilly, 57, sporting mirrored sunglasses and long, gray hair. “It’s wind therapy. I don’t have spasms when I’m on a bike because the vibration relaxes my body.”

Reilly is a former mechanic, now on disability. For three years, he rode a Honda motorcycle that he and his friend, Jake Alberson, adapted with salvaged parts, including hand controls for shifting and a two-wheeled cart that provided stability and carried his wheelchair.

However, police recently ticketed him for driving without a motorcycle license, which he wasn’t able to get because his adapted bike didn’t meet state regulations.

Reilly’s friends and family have organized a fundraiser to help him buy a $2,000 Voyager trike kit so he can convert the Honda into a street-legal, three-wheeled motorcycle.

“It’s like training wheels for a motorcycle,” said Reilly’s daughter, Dories Monroe, 36, of Belleville, who’s organizing the fundraiser.

Bikers and other area residents are invited to gather at 1 p.m. Saturday at Hanft Park in New Athens for barbecue, drinks, a bike wash, dunk tank, fishing, volleyball, kids activities, music, a 50-50 drawing and attendance prizes. All will be available on a donation basis.

Reilly won’t be able to carry his wheelchair on the newly adapted motorcycle, but that’s OK as long as he can get back out on some country roads.

“I don’t like riding in the city,” he said. “There’s too many people on phones. I like to ride out in the country. If I’m going to hit something, I want it to be a cow.”

If Reilly gets the trike kit, Alberson will be back in the garage. The part-time welder and fabricator has helped his friend with several projects in the past 20 years.

“In (Bob’s) younger days, he did all of the work himself,” said Alberson, 59, of Fults, who also has a News-Democrat delivery route. “But now that he’s older, I do it for him. He’s the brains behind it.”

Reilly’s family moved to Belleville from Oregon when he was a teenager. He suffered a series of misfortunes in the late 1970s and early ’80s, starting with a train wreck on Illinois Street.

“A guy I was riding with didn’t see the train, and he ran right into the front of the locomotive with his Volkswagen,” Reilly said. “It threw the car about 90 feet down the track, and the train hit us again. But we both lived through it.

“My forehead swelled up. They had to drill some holes in my head to relieve the pressure and keep my head from exploding, but other than that, I was all right.”

A year later, Reilly’s 22-year-old wife, Eva, died of cancer, leaving him to rear two small children, Robert III and Dories. (He also has a daughter, Jessica Stone, from a previous relationship.) A year after that, their house burned down.

“My son, when he was young, was playing with a lighter, and he caught something on fire, and the house burned down,” Reilly said.

Life got even tougher on July 3, 1982. Reilly broke his neck diving into an above-ground swimming pool, causing paralysis. He was 25.

“It changed my life forever,” Reilly said. “They told me I’d never move anything from below my chest, but I fooled them.”

Technically, doctors don’t consider Reilly paraplegic because he can move his toes, feel it if someone touches his legs and stand for a short time if holding onto something solid.

Reilly drives a white van that he also adapted with hand controls. It’s decorated with gray and black flames and a picture of Betty Boop on a motorcycle and bears his nickname, “Wheelchair Bob.”

“There’s not a negative bone in his body,” Alberson said. “If there’s a will, there’s a way. That’s his philosophy. He lives in (public) housing, and he’s always helping people. He’s the baby sitter, and he’s the maintenance man. He just a heck of a guy.”

Reilly always dreamed of riding a motorcycle again, but he didn’t act on it until four years ago, when his brother, Ken, challenged him to adapt one of his mopeds, which he did.

Then Reilly bought the Honda, a special-edition drag bike, for $800 and adapted it. New motorcycles for disabled people are available, but they can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

“I adapt everything,” Reilly said, laughing. “Wait until I get done (with the trike project). I’m going to adapt a helicopter and fly out of here.”

This story was originally published July 15, 2015 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Paralyzed New Athens man wants to hit the road again."