I got my new chair a few days earlier than expected and spent the weekend playing with it. This is more or less the model I have…

,,,with a few minor differences. The backrest and footrest are a bit different on mine and it has (folding) push handles. Oh, and the castors on mine are black, not silver. But you get the idea. I also got a set of offroad tyres and a Feeewheel attachment, which looks like this:

…and attaches to the footrest, so that I will look like this when marauding around:

I don’t know why I’ll be trying to climb a small rock, but here we apparently are.

Anyway, I haven’t been able to test the Freewheel and offroad tyres outside because it’s been raining all day, but I took a trip around the village and then a decent run of ~5 miles. It’s a huge improvement in almost every way, since my old chair is an off-the-shelf one. The new one being made to measure makes all the difference, but I think I want to drop the centre of gravity a little bit and see if that generates a little more torque.

But definitely a massive improvement in covering distance. Inside, it’s a lot more manoeuvrable. I can get into the kitchen, now, without a lot of faffing around. Of course, I can’t actually reach the hob or anything from the cupboards while I’m in there, but first things first. It’s also a lot easier to get into the car: wheels off and straight into the boot. If I ever get a car with hand controls, I reckon I’ll be able to lift it into the passenger seat over my body without much difficulty.

All positive so far, no doubt I’ll find something to annoy me over time. I’m going to Edinburgh in it tomorrow, to this:

Edinburgh is hilly, but I shouldn’t have to go up too many of them.