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At the Rehacare fair I had the world’s lightest wheelchair on my knees, the
of the Swedish company
As light as the wheelchair, as heavy is the price for this wheeler Ferrari . 
Further information e.g. www.aktiv-rollstuhl.de
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Uneven paths, curbs, cobble stone, sand, gravel, grass and of course snow are not really friends of a wheeler.
With a little oomph you reach an artistic score of 5.8 for your flight out of the wheelchair. This can end up annoying, see older blogpost Broken Leg.
The solution is rather simple, you “just” need a longer wheelchair. But if I had a longer wheelchair I wouldn’t get it into the wheelchair loading system of my car.
My Minitrac and handcycle are great, but I always need a volunteer to get one of it out of the cellar.
A super alternative is a single wheel in the size of half a children’s bicycle which you clamp to the front of your wheelchair, and when the front wheels are lifted it gets perfect. The wheelchair then looks a bit like a jogging stroller. There are various producers of such a system.
On the Rehacare fair in DĂĽsseldorf I have met Patrick Dougherty, the American inventor of the
I knew this attached wheel from many videos from the internet, but it is not easily available in Germany. It is so small that you can store it at the back of a rigid frame wheelchair. I take it on my knees when I descend with my platform lifter because I have a foldable wheelchair. Just input “FreeWheel” in Youtube and see for yourself what is suddenly accessible, e.g.:
I could buy a new “fair wheel” from him which was still lying in the hotel. On the last day of the fair he deposited it at the booth of Runa Reisen, a travel agency for handicapped. I know their staff very well because I always book my holidays there. They have sent the FreeWheel to my home then. Thanks again from this side.
With the FreeWheel it is even possible, ideally with additional Mountainbike tyres, to ride safely in the snow. Now the next winter can start, or maybe even a little bit of desert…
The FreeWheel is clamped tetra-easily to the footrest of a rigid-framed wheelchair. (But I have a foldable wheelchair…???)
If you ride forwards afterwards the front tyres of the wheelchair are lifted, and the fun can begin.
Because of the big tyres even “shocks” due to rough grounds are almost not noticed any more.
A rack with maximum load of 12 kg is available as well.
It has been upgraded with missing spoke reflectors incl. blinking valve caps (see picture above).
Of course Patrick wanted to know in detail how I get the FreeWheel clamped to my actually non-suitable foldable wheelchair by magic with Michael’s help.
New 2014 FreeWheel for folder-wheelchairs
For enquiries contact as usual: rollinator@eigude.de
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The wheelchair Segway is not only available from
Also the German company
is constructing one of those models. I think they are affordable, but apart from that I could not report more than what you can see on the website.
A wheeler mate has found out some things, I consider his investigations most interesting. However I can’t guarantee for the correctness of the information.
I will call him Informant Segway:
The scooter by Genny shown in the film clip costs laid-back 15950 Euro (net). I have got this information from the Italian headquarter.
A possible alternative is the MobilityCube reconstruction kit based on a Segway. Costs 3.800,00 €!
The customer either brings his own Segway, or we provide a Segway.
The aquisition of a Segway costs new 7.900,00 € and used from Segway 6.600,00 €.
We arrange the individual approval of the technical control association for costs of 385,00 €. Illumination according to road traffic regulations 50,00 €.
Optionally the customers can exchange the original tyres with tyres of the company Axperts. http://www.axperts.de
Usually an extra charge of ca. 420,00 € bis 450,00 € arises…
Thanks to informant Segway for the investigation!!!
Now we only have to convince Santa Claus as sponsor, and the fun can begin.
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The Rehacare fair which takes place once a year in DĂĽsseldorf is a must for each wheeler.
There you can see more or less everything you can imagine relating to technical aids and medical devices.
Starting with wheelchair manufacturers, hand cycles, ski, bath equipment, car customizing, help for everyday life, travel agencies for handicapped, etc, etc, etc,…
Unfortunately I couldn’t go to the fair last year. As is known I had left my wheelchair involuntarily and broken my right leg (see older blogpost).
Currently the absolute highlight in the wheelchair area is the Genny.
Basically it is nothing different than a “Segway” in wheelchair variant.
A Segway is this 2-wheel-vehicle on which you can drive around standing as pedestrian, and which meanwhile even the police is using.
The wheelchair variant is distributed only since August 2012 from the Suisse company Gennymobility in Germany.
Due to the big tyres uneven grounds or holes are no problem anymore.
This is mobility!!!
Watch the video how you can speed with the Genny along the beach as a wheeler, this vehicle is awesome…
I was hoping that I would be able to test this special wheelchair. This was one of the main reasons for me visiting the fair this year. I was very lucky that I only had to wait for around 15 minutes.
After I was eventually sitting on the vehicle the kind lady on the picture below was telling me that we quadriplegics are not allowed to drive with the Genny due to missing stability of the upper part of the body, we might fall down!
Uh,… I especially brought my belt from home.
Then she said it was not allowed to buckle up so that one doesn’t get hurt when the Genny falls over.
No,… I wanted to get started with it,… this is not easy to understand, these Swiss people are crazy…!!!
Well, after short discussion in Italian without me at the booth they were gracious, and I was allowed to get cruising under supervision, like everyone else.
The handling is very easy, by bending forward you start, by leaning backwards the lady Genny stops or drives backwards.
The handle bar is for steering, what else. With a bit of training it is possible without problems to turn on the spot.
The driving experience reminded me a lot of skiing, what made me cry a little bit as formerly obsessed skier, amazing…
According to my opinion the wheelchair Segway, in which variant ever, will make its way as variant of an electric wheelchair due to its easy, comfortable and speedy driving manner and in spite of its size, weight and high purchase price.
The “Genny” is still a vehicle for physically fit wheelers. We will have to wait a bit longer until it will get a technical aid for us “tired warriors”, but it’s a beginning!
If they wouldn’t have let me start, I would have gone on “sit-down strike” on the vehicle
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When I was discharged from the hospital in 2008 I got the same wheelchair type which I used already in the hospital, but I had to realize that I could move significantly worse.
I have to mention that even today each 3-year-old leaves me easily behind with his wooden training bike (see older blogpost).
During the last years I have engaged myself intensively with the optimization of my wheelchair and have noticed in doing so that the exact calibration of the steering fork of the front tyres is extremely important. The axes must not be distorted either. This saves a lot of power of which I don’t have much anyway.
The steering forks are adjustable so that one can individually choose the size of the front tyres.
Although this makes sense it has the negative effect though that they could be shifted involuntarily. This happens e.g. when the taxi service fixes the hooks of the tie-down restraints at the forks of the front tyres instead of the wheelchair frame.
Sometimes even a curb is enough, or “qualified“ personnel at the airport to shift the forks.
No matter why, no wheelchair moves straight with crooked steering forks!!!
It can be referred to in each operating manual of the respective wheelchair how to adjust the steering forks.
Have a look at it, extremely interesting…
Such adjustments may only be executed due to insurance reasons by qualified personnel from the medical supply store.
You may have a look, only screw with your eyes…!!!
I have worked out a method, I call it Lucky Wheel, with which anybody can check the steering forks easily with an even wooden board and a stop angle, or a set square from school times. I cannot recommend a supposed even floor.
You put the wheelchair on the wooden board and twist a front tyre in a 90° angle to the wheelchair frame to the outside.
Now you hold the stop angle or the set square right and left to the tyre respectively the board.
If there is between tyre and angle, like my supervisor in my apprenticeship kindly used to say:
There is more light coming through than through a window…, a slot (see below in the picture), the steering fork is shifted, or something else is defective.
This slot could now be closed by rotating the steering fork which has an eccentric on my wheelchair model.
Of course we leave such adjustment tasks to the qualified personnel of the medical supply store…
When this is done after a couple of days you turn the tyre again by 90° for check-up, this time to the inside of the wheelchair, and hold your angle again to it.
In this case the aluminium has caved in, two big washers can work miracles (see pictures above).
I would like to point out again that I assume no liability for these check-up possibilities of the steering forks and all related consequences!!!
For any questions please contact: rollinator@eigude.de
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As a man you have already evolutionary determined a technical gene. What was in Stone Age the then high tech marble stone axe with polished oak wood grip, is today the 60 inch 3D television with Dolby 16:1. The new shooter console is probably more modern than everything what the German army owns, and of course not to forget the refrigerator with WiFi and integrated ice cube dispenser where you can pre-select the shape of the ice cubes directly with the tablet PC from the couch from an individual CAD file.
In the end it is very simple, if the man is not capable to do he calls for technology…!!!
I am not alluding to the bedroom.
Except that I drove a VW Golf for 12 years I didn’t have much to do with the lawn sport of the same name, I was once playing hockey.
If you are not able to stand any more as wheeler the shot at the club house on the golf court can get a bit difficult. The variant that 2 strong caddies lift you up for each shot seems possible, but I think that the guys will slightly flag after the 12th hole. So technology is called again. For this case there is the
The Powergolfer is a well motorised, very flexible electric scooter with a stand-up fuction, similar to my standing chair (see older blogpost).
You are buckled up with legs and belly, beamed up until standing, and hits on the innocent golf ball like all the others.
Here the constructor explains in person how this is working.
Unfortunately I could not undergo a self test due to my broken leg not healed yet. I was nevertheless convinced. It is a great technical aid for golfing wheelchair users.
The Powergolfer is also available with small modifications as I call it Powerfisher. However successful draughts of fish cannot be guaranteed.
In the integrated trunk there is enough space for a tool kit, with which the Powergolfer also turns into a wheelchair service vehicle. The hand bar on the side, pimped with a golf ball, is also usable as mounting and repair hammer.
Because of the standing function of the Powergolfer I had to finally surrender after a hard fight in the direct battle with my Minitrac.
On my inquiry if the Powergolfer would also be available with sickle bar I got the answer if I would like to have it… nothing seems impossible!!!
More information and video under www.powergolfer.de
I doubt that the health insurance will cover the acquisition costs of the golf wheelchair, but for next birthday present, why not…
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That standard wheelchairs, snow and sand are not the best friends is not really the insight of the day.
The low budget mountainbike wheelchair tyres
(see older blog post),
constructed by myself are indeed a big relief for me on bad ground conditions, but the small front tyres are for sand and snow by far the worst solution.
Well, with some special skating wheels as front tyres you might be able to illuminate the snow, but you are not moving any faster anyhow.
Actually I don’t understand it, but the engineers at the wheelchair companies don’t seem to know neither snow nor sand. Even after longer consideration I couldn’t think of any country which would not have at least one of it. Probably they live on trees, otherwise there would be adequate summer and winter equipment for each wheelchair as a standard.
Some day I will build in old MacGyver manner out of an inflatable physiotherapy ball and a hand fan a mobile mounting set with which my rolling vehicle turns into a ground-independent hovercraft wheelchair
Until I get there I continue combing through the technical aids scene to see what the colleagues are developing.
I am living in the city, but last year even my hometown Frankfurt was full of snow.
As formerly alpine skiing obsessed who was skiing with 2 meter skis in the Alps still in 2007 (no carving ski in children’s length) I already thought several times to cut my 2 cellar decoration skis in homeopathic pieces and screw them to my wheelchair instead of the front tyres to be able to leave my flat in last year’s snow chaos.
A seating test in a monoski on a fair was quite nice, and I was extremely surprised how stable I was sitting in it, until I asked my friend behind me if he was standing on the ski?
He said yes, took off his foot, I fell over, and the project monoski was postponed for the time being…!!!
When I read the post of a wheelchair hotel in Oberstdorf known to me I was immediately impressed.
Patrick Mayer, what a coincidence, a wheeler himself from Switzerland, who certainly has much more test snow than me each year, developed the Wheel Blades.
The
are small blades which can be clamped with an iron clip anytime easily (even for quadriplegics) to the front tyres of the wheelchair.
The front tyres remain on the wheelchair!!! The binding is individually adjustable.
There was a real expert at work. Look at the Video,
he rolls down a flat ski-slope with these things on his wheelchair. The envy factor increases, ok I grant it to him.
He has even added slide rails to the blades so that they keep the track on the slope. Excellent, chapeau!!!
The Wheel Blades can be ordered in advance from October 2012, I will do it.
To anticipate anything, they might get paid by the employer’s accident insurance at best, or you have a good lawyer at the social court!!!
I haven’t heard anything yet about test rides in the snow board half pipe, and the snow and waterski suitability still has to be proved
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I have reported about my wheelchair tractive type Minitrac
already several times (click below under “Tags” on Minitrac to read older blog posts).
After re-importing the roundabout 15 year old Minitrac from Tenerife back to its home country one year ago, replacing all wearing parts and a set of new batteries the Trac was completely ready for use again.
This was proven in June 2011 at more than + 30° Celsius in Crete.
Technically ok again means for me that the Trac can be modified now.
I am still a bit indecisive about the final appearance.
But I had to realize the tip of S. Jakober, the chief engineer of Swisstrac ((similar tractive).
You might call me insane, why you need in Frankfurt/Main
Even here sometimes snow is falling, sandstorms are more unusual.
Yippee…, finally it is here, my test snow!!!
At the moment it is snowing since 2 hours at minus 9° Celcius, well, better than Kelvin…
When we have reached a snow depth of min. 10 cm, I will voluntarily leave my cosy warm flat even at – 30° Celsius and drive around outside with the Minitrac, so that I can write a truthful test report, if I will survive it.
OK…, I have to admit that I only need the tractor wheels because our pub quarter in Alt Sachsenhausen has cobble stones.
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I have reported about my wheelchair tractive type Minitrac
already several times (click below under “Tags” on Minitrac to read older blog posts).
After re-importing the roundabout 15 year old Minitrac from Tenerife back to its home country one year ago, replacing all wearing parts and a set of new batteries the Trac was completely ready for use again.
This was proven in June 2011 at more than + 30° Celsius in Crete.
Technically ok again means for me that the Trac can be modified now.
I am still a bit indecisive about the final appearance.
But I had to realize the tip of S. Jakober, the chief engineer of Swisstrac ((similar tractive).
You might call me insane, why you need in Frankfurt/Main
Even here sometimes snow is falling, sandstorms are more unusual.
Yippee…, finally it is here, my test snow!!!
At the moment it is snowing since 2 hours at minus 9° Celcius, well, better than Kelvin…
When we have reached a snow depth of min. 10 cm, I will voluntarily leave my cosy warm flat even at – 30° Celsius and drive around outside with the Minitrac, so that I can write a truthful test report, if I will survive it.
OK…, I have to admit that I only need the tractor wheels because our pub quarter in Alt Sachsenhausen has cobble stones.
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The instruction of my chief physician to rest my injured leg in an elevated position meanwhile causes sleepless nights for me.
Because the special
with foldaway footrests is innavigable for me and far too big I am already thinking since the time in hospital how I could realize to mount something on my wheelchair so that I can permanently rest my leg elevated, but also bend it.
I got the tip several times to put a wooden board below my cushion. Everybody who was ever sitting on a rocker knows where that ends.
Yesterday morning I woke up after a leg-elevation nightmare and miraculously I had a foldaway, removable footrest from my tank wheelchair on my everyday wheelchair. Strange things happen…???
I was very much delighted, a miracle, it must have something to do with Halloween.
I would never dare to drill holes into my medcial supply store wheelchair.
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I already mentioned several times that I should rest my broken leg despite orthosis in an elevated position as much as possible.
To rest the leg elevated sitting in my own wheelchair under my desk on a small flower stool turns out to be a little inconvenient, especially when you permanently need something, or the arm is not long enough again…
I refuse the tank wheelchair in my flat (see blogpost below).
The latest “technical aids construct” appears a little clumsy at first sight, but is well thought on and almost ready for series production.
With a Swedish drawer box, the book “Our Wonderful Planet” and a blue pillow of a German coffee roaster a rolling board for flower pots from my stairwell which I coaxed as permanent loan from my neighbour was pimped to the exact positioning height of my leg.
I now put my leg coolly on my rolling board-drawer box and drive comfortably with my wheelchair under the desk.
With a special adaption on the wheelchair my rolling board should also be outdoor suitable. A medical device number has been applied for, and a motorization is currently in the planning phase!
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Especially with the current rainy weather conditions the maintenance of the wheelchair shouldn’t be neglected.
The driving wheels get wet, and the axes could rust. According to my opinion the driving wheels should be removed from the wheelchair latest every 4 weeks. Clean the axes with a piece of cloth and lubricate with grease or machine oil. If this is not done regularly the axes can run dry. When these are free of grease
![](http://www.eigude.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/IMG_2856c.jpg "Away with the \"brown stuff"!!!")
could be generated on the axes, which could be stuck to such an extent that the wheels might not be separated from the wheelchair any more.
If this dark brown film is already on the axes it shouldbe removed from the axes, otherwise it could bring the greatest difficulties the next time when the wheels should be put on or pulled off the wheelchair.
The dark brown film can be removed with a knife, steel brush or best with emery paper.
When the axes are blank again, oil or grease them anew, and the wheelchair is fit again.
As you can see from the picture this happened to me as well!
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Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.
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With a flat tyre on the wheelchair a
is essential.
This wheeler was lucky to be on the road with Makin’Track .
Dave is “Makin Track” and comes from Wales. He has got a bus for 5 wheelers and accompanies them not only in England but in the whole of Europe to their holiday destination. He is driving ahead in his bus with the whole equipment, and the guest can travel with him or fly relaxed to the destination. There you are able to drink and drive with wheelchair and bus.
He repaired the tyre in Formula 1 manner in record-breaking time.
This was in Crete, his next assignment was not so far away, in Switzerland.
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With a flat tyre on the wheelchair a
is essential.
This wheeler was lucky to be on the road with Makin’Track .
Dave is “Makin Track” and comes from Wales. He has got a bus for 5 wheelers and accompanies them not only in England but in the whole of Europe to their holiday destination. He is driving ahead in his bus with the whole equipment, and the guest can travel with him or fly relaxed to the destination. There you are able to drink and drive with wheelchair and bus.
He repaired the tyre in Formula 1 manner in record-breaking time.
This was in Crete, his next assignment was not so far away, in Switzerland.
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I don’t want to keep the beach wheelchairs back from you 
I think the Sopur wheelchair for children is awesome. A good pusher is a must.
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