Well… ok, I confess guilty… see older blogpost concerning the subject wheelchair tyres !!!

It is difficult to explain to a pedestrian how much the driving characteristics of a wheelchair can change if you only change the tyres. Plus according to my opinion a wheelchair may also look nice.

The wheelchair mirrors a bit the soul of the driver!

Show me the wheelchair, and I prepare a complete psychological profile of the owner.

You need the right tyre for each occasion, or would you go into the opera with hiking boots… ehhh… mountainbike tyres???

I was somehow missing such an opera tyre…

Like girls fancy pink and bling-bling, boys have always been crazy about chrome.

Of course I have this Y-Chrome-osome as well.

When I saw in the depths of the internet this blinking wheelchair tyre with more than 140 spokes

and the mighty racing nut in the middle I immediately had to think of James Bond and his Aston Martin DB05 from Goldfinger and Thunderball.

Source: jamesbond.wikia.com

My second thought was, these wheels with their white sidewall tyres want to be put on my wheelchair quickly.

I think they look great, the chrome trims on the dress guard were there before. The blue steering forks will of course be exchanged.

What do you think, a chrome radiator grill between the legs is already under discussion

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For the 18-year-old kids who think their highly tuned 65 hp small car would need apart from the blue-red blinking footwell area illumination an absolute highlight on the outside there are luminescent valve caps.

When the wheels are turning the battery-driven lamps in different colours are starting to glow or blink.
It’s quite impressive and immediately attracts the attention of the police… wasn’t there something about road traffic regulations…

For us wheelchair users these little lamps are great. You are turning the wheel a little bit, it is blink-blinking, and you are well noticed in traffic and also at street fairs by pedestrians.

You can buy them for just a few Euros in Ebay, partially even directly from Hongkong. So far all shipments from China have arrived undamaged at my home.

These lamps are working for months without changing the batteries.

I am using them on my beloved FreeWheel (see blogpost), a single spoke wheel which is clamped to the footrest of the wheelchair.

I have given a set of these lights to my wheeler friend, and he screwed them directly onto his wheelchair.

He was really stopped by the police when he was just coming out of the pharmacy, and he should have paid a ticket because of the illegal illumination of his wheelchair.
For each running wheel 5 Euro fine because of blue instead of orange illumination, and because the valve caps didn’t have an off-switch another 2 x 5 Euros on top.

What a nonsense… these are the regulations for a bicycle…

20 Euro fine because the police can’t distinguish a wheelchair from a bicycle…!!!

My friend asked the officers to send him the ticket with the corresponding paragraphs home and announced the probable publication of the incident on the EIGUDE internet blog.

Unfortunately we are still waiting for the ticket to be sent since a couple of months now

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It is not owned by yourself, but by your medical supply store.

Refurbishment and reconstruction are only allowed to be done by the medical supply store for insurance reasons

Except for cleaning you are not allowed to do anything officially…!!!

However I also recommend regular greasing and oiling (see older blogpost).

With a newly prescribed wheelchair you are usually allowed to select the colour, but this is the utmost individuality you can get.

Of course a wheelchair has to fit primarily from a medical point of view, but where is it written that it should not look stylish as well.

The look of the wheelchair reflects the soul of its owner… ommm…

I really have to work on my meditation… eh, medication, well, this is a little bit right however…!!!

The easiest way to change the appearance of your wheelchair is to fix spoke protector discs with motif on the running wheels.

The original reason for spoke protector discs is that such a “buckled finger” like me doesn’t clamp his fingers in the spokes.

Children get these quite expensive discs with logos from football clubs or motifs from Princess Lilifee and other kids characters paid by the health insurance, and the kids are very proud how great their wheelchair is looking.

As old guy you have to pay the discs yourself or drive around with the original health insurance shopper look.

Depending on the company, you have a choice of dozens of motifs “ready-made”, but you can get almost every picture printed on the discs as well.
Believe me, I have seen quite weird things.

You can let your creativity “run wild“.

I have now got my own discs produced, in fact according to my own design with personal reference:

With such an eye-catcher the wheelchair is not so much seen as medical device anymore and can even ease some situations. Especially kids react unbiased to the motif and don’t have any fear of contact.

I have got the discs produced at an innovative family company (contact on request at rollinator@eigude.de).

If you are on 25.-27. April 2013 visiting the REHAB in Karlsruhe, keep the eyes open if you discover my motif at one of the booths

A physiotherapist noticed once with expert’s eye that the lion is an above-knee amputee…
I was just in this moment in the swimming pool, forgot to move the arms and was almost drowning.

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My favourite wheeler joke

A blind, a deaf and a wheeler stand at the river Jordan.

Then a voice speaks to them:

Swim through the river, and you will experience a miracle.

The wheeler is pushing the blind first to the right direction, and he falls into the water.

He swims to the other side and calls out loud, I can see again, I can see again.

Now it’s the turn of the deaf, when he comes out of the water he cries out lout, I can hear again!!!

The wheeler jumps into the water, he just makes it to the other side without drowning.

When he comes up the bank, he calls out loud:

Yippie… a set of “new tyres”,… a set of “new tyres”…!!!

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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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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…!!!

Who was it, a Swiss man…!!!

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

www.wheelblades.ch

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

Translator BL

Wheelblades, wheelchairski

http://www.eigude.de/blog/?p=9362&lang=en translated!

FreeWheel

http://www.eigude.de/blog/?p=15468&lang=en translated!

Reflectors and Illumination

http://www.eigude.de/blog/?p=5699&lang=en translated!
http://www.eigude.de/blog/?p=4162&lang=en translated!
http://www.eigude.de/blog/?p=882&lang=en translated!

Moutainbike Winter Tyres

http://www.eigude.de/blog/?p=1311&lang=en translated!
http://www.eigude.de/blog/?p=4829&lang=en translated!
http://www.eigude.de/blog/?p=2068&lang=en translated!
http://www.eigude.de/blog/?p=4759&lang=en translated!

Wheelchair auxiliary snow chains

http://www.eigude.de/blog/?p=4928&lang=en translated!

Running direction of “Schwalbe” tyres

http://www.eigude.de/blog/?p=2271

Wheelchair tyre cleaning carpet

http://www.eigude.de/blog/?p=1328

Wheelchair tyre slippers

http://www.eigude.de/blog/?p=3298

Christmas Tree remote control

http://www.eigude.de/blog/?p=4397

Special wheelchair for removing snow

http://www.eigude.de/blog/?p=4239

Story referring to the picture

http://www.eigude.de/blog/?p=4582

Miscellaneous

http://www.eigude.de/blog/?p=750
http://www.eigude.de/blog/?p=4636

If you have good ideas, as usual e-mail to rollinator@eigude.de

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surface rust

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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type bush hospital

Source: (BST)

Racing wheelchair type:

Pimp my ride with plush dice

and the legendary electric wheelchair from Meyra:

Blue Tank 3.037

Original price of the “Blue Tank” in 1997 reportedly around 25.000 DM

If you have any pictures of freaky wheelchairs, send them to me!

E-Mail like usual to: rollinator@eigude.de

Translator BL

As already mentioned in several blogposts I am convinced that a set of

mountainbike wheelchair tyres

should be provided with the basic equipment of the first wheelchair.
Somehow a secret is made around the big advantage of these tyres.
For me, these tyres are no surplus luxury goods, or poser sport equipment, but a medical necessity so that a justification for the prescription of a medical device, the request for approval at the health insurance, is basically given.

Due to the wider-based tyres the security increases especially in cities with cobble stone because you don’t get stuck in the joints so often anymore.

Many shocks due to bad ground conditions are absorbed by the tyres, thus the spinal cord respectively the whole body is not strained so much anymore. Your back and bottom will be happy.

The wheelchair pusher is relieved very much on bad trails, mud, ice and snow…

The argument that you make no headway with these wheels is very much depending on the tyres, but not overall correct. The advantages predominate. I recommend a Schwalbe Land Cruiser as tyre.

The disadvantage of the wheels is the broadening of the whole wheelchair. Too bad if you don’t fit into the garage anymore.

I don’t know to which extent it is medically important for the health insurance that the wheeler can leave his home even in snow drift. You could catch a cold, but the groceries of the most important things like coffee, chocolate and condoms… should be ensured in winter as well.

With prices for a set of mountainbike wheelchair tyres from 560 € – 900 € from the wheelchair producers I understand everybody who refuses to buy them because actually these are “only” wheelchair tyres with a 10 – 20 € bicycle rim with bicycle tube and tyre.

As a matter of principle I refuse to pay such exorbitant prices. For the same money you can get already a really nice complete mountainbike. Thus I have let me built two wheelchair tyres for around 220 €.

Yesterday I have found a wheelchair replacement part company in the nearer abroad who charge per piece

wheelchair mountainbike tyre 117€

This price is more than reasonable.

You shouldn’t forget the insurance aspect. With do-it-yourself constructions you can get into trouble if something is happening.

The company is currently closed until January.

I have ordered a quite special

wheelchair hand rim for quadriplegics

from this company with which I hope to ride a little out in the snow by myself.

Of course I will write if the ordering should work.

Company name enquiries to me:

Contact: rollinator@eigude.de

From a snow height of 2 meters even my tyres slowly reach their limits.

Click on Tags “Wheelchair tyres” to read more blogposts.

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