As I mentioned in Ron’s Rants – the future I’ve bought a powerchair –http://www.betterlifehealthcare.com/view_product.php?prodID=7619
Should be here in a few days.
It’s primarily for indoor use, not so much in my flat, but in the building, where there is – very often – more walking to do than I need. The laundry room is as far away as it’s possible to be, for example, not to mention toting garbage out to the bin room, across the car-park. I have a system of climbers’ tape loops and carabiners that allows me to attach a shopping bag to a wheelchair (manual or powered), to hang in front of me and which will work equally well with refuse bags. Ditto my laundry bag.
The cycle panniers (here and here) that I used to carry shopping on my scooter can, I’m 99% sure, be fitted to the new chair, to use it for shopping (more convenient than a scooter). The big question is whether they’ll fit through doorways while full of shopping. They wouldn’t on the scooter, leaving me to hump the buggerdly things to my flat from the entrance. If they don’t, I’ll buy a conventional seat-back bag.
Actually, that’s one reason why I used the scooter so little – it still left me with more work to do than I needed (and, you know, everywhere I look there’s indicators point to the recent crisis, like it being terribly exhausting just carrying shopping in). If everything works out, the powerchair will be the new workhorse, and the scooter will be purely for leisure (assuming (a) I get well enough to be able to manhandle thing into my flat and (b), we actually get a dry summer.
The pair of Electron front cycle lights, and their mounting system,
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can be made to fit the new chair with relatively little tweaking, ditto the LED rear lights (the good thing about low-tech, conventional chairs it the abundance of frame tube to mount stuff to).
The Air Zound air horn is a life-saver, seriously – don’t venture out without one, because powerchair and scooter horns are about as loud as a wasp in a jam-jar. No use if some dork is about to reverse into you.
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Transferring mine to the new chair will be a snip, the reason being that the thing has controller mounting brackets on both sides. Insert a suitable piece of metal tube, or even a stick, attach the horn, locate it so the button is naturally under my hand – done.
Got mine here, now £16.99 delivered.
The AirZound has a pressure bottle that you pump up with your tyre pump (I have a rechargeable one – saves a lot of effort, especially when pumping up from flat after adding tyre sealant), and which will give you about 50 ear-shattering blasts before needing to be topped up again – that’s good for a few months. Round here, of a morning, we get a lot of dozy pricks, half asleep, reversing their cars out of driveways (which to my mind should be an offence – reverse in, drive out forwards, so you can see properly, how hard can it be?). A blast on the air horn gets their attention in no uncertain manner, cos it sounds as if they’re about to be T-boned by a truck. Yep, it’s really that loud.
So that’s me good to go. When my chair comes, anyway.
It’s worth mentioning that 4mph powerchairs (and scooters), are not road legal – they’re pavement (sidewalk to you lot in the colonies), machines. Not that it’s ever bothered me – I learned very early on that it’s no fun cruising a half-mile stretch of pavement, only to find some tosser parked on it, so you have to go all the way back to get off! So I ride on the road. If the police don’t like it** sod ’em – let them do their job properly and bust selfish bloody motorists until the bastards get the message and stop parking on the pavements!
**I’ve only ever been nabbed once while riding on the road – cop-car pulled alongside and said “Stop at the station down the road – I’ll be waiting!” I thought, Oops! When I got there he gave me a fluorescent yellow jacket – the type they wear at accident scenes – and sent me on my way. There are some decent coppers – just not enough of them.
Actually, the only aggro I’ve had in almost 20 years is from the occasional bus-driver – they do seem to resent having to deviate a few feet from a straight line. Too damn bad!
The chair, as I think I’ve mentioned, has a claimed 20-mile range, and the battery size seems to bear that out (anyone claiming a 40-mile range on 35Ah batteries is lying, but it happens), which is ample for pottering down to Sainsbury’s (7 mile round trip), and back.
It should take me out birdwatching too. I use a D-SLR with a 140 – 600mm 35mm-equivalent lens. It’s not particularly heavy, but I have a slight tremor, and that can be problematic, especially at the longer end. However, I have a hide mount, which takes a tripod head, and can be attached, with care, to the left-hand armrest, giving me a solid platform to work from.
Be interesting to see how it works out.
dont get to excited ron this lot in power will find a way to tax you.
Aaaah, screw ‘em – can’t tax a dead man!