Two weeks ago, a man named Chris Waddell arrived at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa.

A paraplegic athlete from Park City, Utah, Waddell became the first in his condition to reach the summit of the 19,340-foot peak.

In addition to the courage, vision and mental and physical strength he needed to achieve that goal, there was something else that helped propel him to the top of the largest free-standing continental mountain on earth; something that could only be found in the Bitterroot.

"We've been using, for quite some time, a two-wheel drive system, which is one of the things that Chris noted .... It provides superb traction, extreme climbing ability, and that's one of the things he wanted to have on this cycle," said Rod Miner, founder of Lightfoot Cycles in Conner. "He also saw that our cycles, born and bred as they are in Montana, are designed to handle rough terrain with snow. He liked that as well."

Working with his partner and employees in their small, secluded shop just off the West Fork Road, Miner designed an arm-powered quadricycle that Waddell used to train for his Kilimanjaro's summit attempt.

Back in January, Waddell's team, the One Revolution Foundation, came to Lightfoot Cycles and asked them to help perfect the design of a four-wheeled, hand-cranked vehicle that was both strong and light enough to get him to the top.

"They had some ideas about what they wanted to do and how they wanted to change (the original design). So, we changed a fair number of things and managed to cut the weight of the cycle almost in half," Miner said. "They said that they wanted a minimalist frame, so we built something much lighter and much less complicated than our standard heavy duty frame."

When they heard that Waddell had successfully accomplished his goal last week, the Lightfoot crew was satisfied.

"We were all very pleased; we knew we could do it," Miner said. "We were very glad when they came to us and we did our best for him. It feels great. It's nice to know that the cycle that we built was adequate to the task."

The kind of innovation that accomplished that feat, however, is nothing new for the small, Bitterroot-based business.

As a teenager growing up in Missouri, Miner worked with his father, a mechanical designer, on developing small utility vehicles that could be used in developing and third-world countries.

"He wanted to help people," he said. "And we were so poor growing up that the only people poorer than us were the Africans."

In the early 1990s, Miner moved to the Bitterroot and began designing his first hand-powered cycle, tweaking his father's designs.

"We made our first handcycle about 15 years ago," he said. "Our first product was the PET hand trike; it stands for Personal Energy Transportation. It evolved here in our shop for the first four or five years of its fabrication, but now has become an international volunteer staffed organization."

After helping set up the organization Gift of Mobility, which uses volunteer labor to fabricate and assemble the cycles that he designed, Miner bowed out to pursue other projects, but to date, Gift of Mobility has built and delivered about 15,000 PET hand trikes to survivors of land mine explosions and other afflictions in Africa and southeast Asia.

These days, Lightfoot Cycles is in the business of the design and manufacture of a limited number of custom bicycles, tricycles and quadricycles.

"The majority of the things we're building are going to the domestic market for people who cannot use ordinary bicycles because either the way they're using them, an ordinary bicycle doesn't serve them, or because they physically cannot ride an ordinary bicycle, or simply don't feel comfortable on an ordinary bicycle," Miner explained.

Miner estimates that meeting the needs of mild special-needs clients accounts for about 30 to 40 percent of his business.

Apart from that though, the vehicles Lightfoot creates are geared toward connoisseurs of self-propelled transportation ... like himself.

"The Lightfoot line has sprung like Athena from the brow of Zeus from my tortured brain," he said. "It's really sort of my unique take on cycles."

With the dedicated support of about a half-dozen employees, Lightfoot produces a line of mostly recumbent machines with a focus on adaptability and capability.

"We try to simplify, simplify, simplify ... and one of the ways that we do it is to use ordinary, off-the-shelf bicycle components," he said.

"Not only does it allow (the) cycle to quickly come apart and be stored more compactly, but it also allows the cycle to be more easily maintained, the tire to be more easily repaired, the wheel to be more easily replaced and that's true of everything here," he said. "We build the frame; that's unique. The components are all off-the-shelf bicycle components."

Another technology Lightfoot incorporates into their vehicles is motorized assistance.

"Our electric assist can help people maintain a higher average speed, especially up hills," he said. "For some people, who maybe can't ride as vigorously, that really extends their horizons."

Many of their designs can also be adapted to work as tandems with an articulated hitch.

"Most of the people who get this have a spouse or a child who is physically or developmentally incapable of being in traffic by themselves .... That way, somebody who couldn't otherwise ride, can ride with a parent and free that parent to go outside and enjoy an activity. A lot of parents of developmentally disabled kids are just absolutely relieved to have that ability," he said. "We've had a number of people who've had strokes, who've had MS, who've had any number of nervous or muscular issues. They're able to ride our cycles."

While the firm is, for now, mainly a design house, Miner said, they do plan on working toward becoming a manufacturer in the future, providing access to their unique form of design to a larger audience of pedal-powered enthusiasts.