More breakage :(

I had a decent training push this morning; around 12 miles including (deliberately) a section with a spectacularly bad camber. It rained a bit, but I missed most of it.

However, at the far extent of the push (it would be, wouldn’t it?), I noticed that my chair back was sagging at one side. When I looked, one of the push handles had snapped, somehow. The seat back is made from various velcro straps strung across two vertical struts and the push handles form part of those struts.

Bugger. The Leeds event is on Sunday so the chance of getting a replacement in time was virtually zero. And it would leave no time for further training while the chair was out of action, in any case.

Fortunately, I fixed it. I was able to remove the broken part, lower both handles and restring the velcro straps. So now my backrest is lower than it was. It’s not 100% ideal but it will do for training and will get me through the Leeds event.

After that, I’m going to look for a new backrest. Perhaps a low, rigid (but folding) one, this time.

I always seem to break my chair just before something important. Wheelchairs require more maintenance (and expense) than you think.

As always, take a look at my fundraising page. I’m doing wheelchair half marathons (three this year, plus sundry 10k events) to raise money for nia, a women-led, women-only, secular, rights-based registered charity which has been delivering services to women, girls and children who have been subjected to sexual and domestic violence and abuse, including prostitution, since 1975.

Castors

If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Either wheelchairs take a lot more maintenance than I ever expected, or I’m particularly rough on mine. I suspect it’s both.

On the way home from the hospital the other day I was forced to go through a pretty deep puddle. This is always annoying because my gloves are instantly soaked. It’s quite unpleasant and would probably lead to blisters if my hands weren’t already basically like hooves.

The main problem, though, was that a couple of miles down the road, my chair started grinding. By the time I got home, it was really loud and I could feel the vibration through my hands. Since I’m me, I became convinced that I’d somehow caused irreparable damage when I put on some new rear wheels recently, even though that would be more or less impossible. But when I got home, and with impressively slip-shod diagnostic technique, I worked out that the problem was the castors. Presumably, water got into the bearings.

My new castors, uninterestingly

As they dried out over the next few days, things have improved. I bought some new castors anyway, fitted them today and relegated the old ones to spares. The good news is that the new ones are a lot lighter. Every ounce counts.

So don’t go through puddles, whatever you do. I’m going to order a set of bearings to keep as spares too, because it’s bound to happen again at some point.

Of course, I should have got these: