Introducing Wheelie Accessible: Episode 1 With Extreme Motus Founder Adam Beesely

Sam and I have a new show. It’s called Wheelie Accessible with Sam and Ryan, and it’s a video podcast about one thing: getting more people outdoors, no matter how they get around.

What Is Wheelie Accessible?

Wheelie Accessible is a 15 to 20 minute interview show hosted by Sam Durst and Ryan Grassley, the two guys you’ve probably seen popping wheelies through mud, sand, and creek beds in an Extreme Motus chair. Each episode, we sit down with someone who’s making the outdoors more open to everyone.

That means Extreme Motus team members, national and state park folks, adaptive recreation organizations, and anyone else working on inclusion outside. If you’re helping people with mobility challenges get off the pavement, we want to talk to you.

And yes, the name is a pun. It’s a play on “really accessible,” and it’s also a nod to the fact that our chair has to pop a wheelie to turn. We couldn’t resist.

New episodes live in the Wheelie Accessible playlist on the Sam and Ryan Go YouTube channel.

Episode 1: Adam Beesely on How Extreme Motus Started

For our first guest, we went straight to the source: Adam Beesely, founder and owner of Extreme Motus. Adam describes himself as the guy who “makes sure we have money,” and he’s not wrong. He’s also the reason any of this exists.

It took some arm-twisting to get him on camera. His whole philosophy fits in three words: butts in seats. He doesn’t want credit. He wants as many people as possible using the chair, because he’s seen what it does for the rider and their entire family.

Here are the highlights.

How Did Extreme Motus Start?

Extreme Motus started in a machine shop in Orem, Utah, in February 2018, and it started with taxes. Adam owns an accounting firm, and a client told him he had to meet a couple of guys who needed help getting their books caught up. In Adam’s experience, that usually means there are going to be some issues.

Those guys were Dale Pitts and Todd Loader. Dale was a longtime Provo City firefighter who’d been building hand-cranked recumbent bikes back in the ’80s. He was always tinkering on something in the garage.

A few visits in, Adam spotted a blue machine in the back corner of the shop. It was an off-road wheelchair with one wheel. Adam went home, researched the market, and found nothing that did what he thought an off-road wheelchair should do.

So he asked Dale and Todd a simple question: what if we built these and sold them? In Adam’s words, they were all just naive enough to say yes. Their first two chairs were ready that July, and a local family took one through the Temple to Temple Run, a 5K in Provo. That was the beginning of the beginning.

On the show, I pushed back on the “we were too dumb to know better” line a little. Not knowing how hard something will be might be the most important trait an entrepreneur can have. If anyone knew, they’d just go work for someone else.

Why Does the Extreme Motus Chair Have Three Wheels?

The Extreme Motus chair has three wheels so that one person can push it. The original one-wheel design, like a few other chairs on the market, needed two people handling it on the trail.

That doesn’t work for most families. Adam pointed out that families rarely have just one kid. On a hike, you can’t have mom and dad both holding the chair while two other kids run wild.

So the team went to three wheels for stability, moved the brake, and raised the seat height. About a year in, Adam filed for a patent. COVID stalled the application, but after about three and a half years, the patent came through.

How Did Sam and Ryan Join Extreme Motus?

Sam and I joined Extreme Motus because of an Upwork ad in 2019 and one very overdue video. Adam had great footage of the first ten families who bought chairs, but he needed more. A few freelancers had taken a swing. Nothing really zinged.

I was looking for a side hustle, saw his ad, and pitched him on my friend Sam, who goes bananas any time he’s included in anything. Adam lent us a chair for a video. Then I sat on it. And sat on it.

Adam eventually lost patience, drove over, and took the chair back. After he stormed off, I finally finished editing the video we’d shot at a local park and sent it over. He was blown away. That video became Superstar Sam.

The park had sand, rocks, grass, water, and ducks. The chair handled all of it. It also floats, which meant Sam had to go in the water. The water was very cold. Sam has never let me forget it.

After a few more videos, Adam asked me to come on full time. The offer was three months of guaranteed pay, and if I couldn’t figure out how to sell chairs by then, no promises. I was leaving a steady job at a hundred-year-old company, so I went back and forth for a while. Then my boss yelled at me one more time, and I was in.

Sam was working a job he found boring at the time, and I knew I couldn’t do this without him. We were a package deal from day one.

How Did TikTok Change Things for Extreme Motus?

TikTok turned a YouTube video with 600 views into 900,000 views. The marketing budget back then was my old phone with a cracked screen. I was in my 40s, I did YouTube, and I was skeptical when Adam said to try “this TikTok thing.”

So I took a months-old YouTube video, cut it into three short clips, and posted them. I was walking from a hotel to dinner when my phone started buzzing every five seconds with new followers and comments. We had something people wanted to watch.

Since then, our videos have racked up hundreds of millions of views across social media. The plan never changed: go have fun, and show what the chair makes possible for a person with a mobility challenge, their family, and their caregiver. Someone watching thinks of their kid or their grandma and the places they could go together.

The timing was rough at first. I quit my safe job right as COVID hit and everyone else was losing theirs. But national parks and the outdoors were among the few places people could still go. Families who couldn’t take the cruise suddenly had a reason to get outside instead.

What Almost Made Adam Walk Away?

The hardest part of building Extreme Motus, Adam said, has been people, not chairs. He came from an accounting firm with one or two employees. Suddenly he had partners and a team, and most disagreements came down to money.

His lowest moment was a phone call from someone who quit after a disagreement. He was up at a mountain cabin when it came in. He and I talked it through, decided to fix it, and it worked itself out.

Other rough patches:

• Running out of inventory. A great problem to have, until COVID made parts impossible to get. We sped up, then slammed into the wall.
• Trade shows we couldn’t afford. For years the answer to “why aren’t we at shows?” was simple: no money. Our first one was a virtual show in Dallas. It was terrible.
• A big transition a couple of years ago that Adam called extremely hard.

This year, he says, we’re finally hitting our stride.

On the Road With Sam

One of the best things to come out of all this is that Sam gets to come along. Early on, Sam had a revolving door of caregivers who never lasted long. I spent some time in the Army, so I could handle his trash talk. Eventually Sam’s mom asked why I didn’t just become his caregiver, since I was with him every day anyway. Getting paid to hang out with my best friend? Sign me up.

Our first trip together was to Phoenix. It was the first time Sam had traveled with a friend instead of family. What happened in Phoenix stays in Phoenix.

Adam figures we’ve taken around 50 trips over the past seven years. We’ve gone coast to coast twice this year alone.

What’s Next for Extreme Motus?

Adam’s vision is an all-terrain wheelchair in every town of a certain size, available to check out like a library book. Extreme Motus chairs are already showing up in national and state parks, including the chair now stationed at the Zion Canyon Visitor Center.

The story keeps changing, Adam says, every month and every week. That’s a big part of why we started this podcast.

Who’s Coming Up on Wheelie Accessible?

Future episodes will feature people from Extreme Motus, national park staff, and anyone working on inclusion or helping people get outdoors. If that’s you, or someone you know, reach out.

Subscribe to Sam and Ryan Go on YouTube so you don’t miss the next episode of Wheelie Accessible.

Want to see what the chair can do for your family? Check out the Motus all-terrain wheelchair.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Wheelie Accessible podcast?

Wheelie Accessible with Sam and Ryan is a video podcast about outdoor accessibility. Hosts Sam Durst and Ryan Grassley interview people who help wheelchair users and others with mobility challenges get outdoors.

Where can I watch Wheelie Accessible?

Episodes are on YouTube, in the Wheelie Accessible playlist on the Sam and Ryan Go channel.

Who founded Extreme Motus?

Adam Beesely founded Extreme Motus with Dale Pitts and Todd Loader after discovering their one-wheel off-road wheelchair prototype in an Orem, Utah, machine shop in 2018.

Why does the Extreme Motus wheelchair have three wheels?

Three wheels make the chair stable enough for one person to push on rough terrain. Earlier one-wheel designs needed two people to handle them.

Is the Extreme Motus chair patented?

Yes. Extreme Motus received a patent after roughly three and a half years in the application process.