13 replies to this topic

[PsychoSimon]

It's been a long time coming but today I was finally able to collect my own wheelchair, and returned the borrowed one. It's a quickie argon with the mountain bike wheels and tyres.

MT tyres and a nice black finnish. I likey!!
A few pics:


The 24"x2" knobby tyres ( note the half tread so I don't rip my hands apart on them! )


Side shot:


Back:



it cost £1600 with £730 of that paid by the NHS. A small price to pay for independance with style!! lol

What do you guys reckon?

[wheels5894]

Looks great Simon! I do like the black; looks very classy. how are you managing loading and unloading the chair into the car?

Sorry to boast but I got a new chair this last week, or rather it arrived last Tuesday - the Quickie Ti. I think it is the same as your but titanium and thus a bit lighter. It's a breeze to load and unload. A picture of mine is on the way; well, my son, Simon, took them last night but hasn't got them off the camera yet. [he used to use your online name but now goes under Psymonkee!

[PsychoSimon]

Hey wheels,
I find loading it into the car the same as my last one, as it was the same model, just with lightweight wheels.
I just lift it onto the passenger seat over me.

The wheels take a bit of getting used to. The push rims are smaller than the lightweight ones and there is a bit more rolling resistance but it's nothing I won't get used to. Curb hopping is awesome now! if I go fast enough I can leave the floor lol.

I would have loved the Ti, but alas I'm just a poorper! I don't have the money yet but I will save harder next time I think.

I look forward to a piccy!!

[wheels5894]

Glad you are doing so well, PsychoSimon! I am upgrading, or rather buying my own chair, from the Wheelchair Service's GPV. I have a Renault Kangoo and open the rear sliding door and lift the frame onto the back seat and then the wheels of course. The GPV is not only a heavier frame but also quite a tight fit.

Basically, we decided that the lighter the better as after 24 years of pushing and push towards 60 a bit too fast I needed to take some strain off the shoulder, elbow and wrist joints to try and survive longer. In fact, berofe te GPV I had only had folding chairs and the move to a rigid amazed me in that it was so much easier to push. This new Ti is great, though, with the frame lighter than it looks and it looks light!.

Pictures will come tonight, if my son wants any dinner anyway!

[PsychoSimon]

haha,
Sounds like you deserve the Ti more than me!

I drive a mitsubisho colt 3 door. The door is huge and it's really easy to get into. So much so that when I went to fetch the car from the dealers (i had only just come out of hospital) I managed to get my full sized nhs chair in there!!

I'm on now too so it just keeps getting easier!

[Lucydog]

Cooooooooooool chair man!!!!! MMMMMM VERY nice!!1

what are the tyres? where can I get some? Black looks so much better than grey and with the wonky pavements in Cumbria I need them!!!

Enjoy it if thats the right word!!

Cheers
L

[PsychoSimon]

the tyres are made by Scwalbe and are called "Wild Thing" and can be found here:
http://www.schwalbe....=045528-065-021

but mine are on mountain bike wheels so am Unsure as to whether they will fit a standard wheel chair rim? may be worth an email to the manufacturer. If you can get them on though they are an awesome tyre. wet curbs even are no effort compared to the skinny ones i did have. Grass etc is so much easier too and the comfort over cobbles etc is great

Can you tell I like them?

[wheels5894]

Ok, here it comes...

[Adrian]

Nice chairs Simon and wheels, although I'm biased towards the Ti as I should be getting mine end of next week hopefully. I like the black look also and was a bit miffed that the Ti only comes in grey/silver.

Simon, when I went to the NHS I got a voucher for £1300 odd towards my new chair, how come you ended up getting £730?

[Apparelyzed]

It's the Post Code Lottery!

Simon

[wheels5894]

not in Scotland, there are no voucher up here!

[Adrian]

Apparelyzed, on Aug 12 2007, 04:33 PM, said:

It's the Post Code Lottery!

Simon

Wow, I didn't realise that I thought that it might have been that I bought my previous wheelchair myself without any voucher and were perhaps making up for it(but after thinking about that would be very unlikely).. Things like this should be standardised as it's not likely that geographical location will have much, if any, effect of the price of a wheelchair!

wheels5894, on Aug 12 2007, 04:43 PM, said:

not in Scotland, there are no voucher up here!

I would have thought that they would have given you atlest the cost of a GPV as they were already going to provide you with one. It's a bad joke really.

[wheels5894]

Well, yes, something towards a chair would have been nice but Scotland does things its own way and thus even our wheelchair service works differently. There was a big conference a while back towards taking everyone's views of the service and how it could be improved. the fional report suggested that there should be an injection of £25 million but the government (the Scottish one) supplied only £1 million. There was some talk of sorting out a system for vouchers but nothing came of it.

Even worse, we have a postcode lottery in Scotland as well. There several independent wheelchair services run by health authorities for their own region and where one lives decides where you go for a wheelchair. Fir example, Fife is served from Edinburgh, even the north coast of Fife that looks out over the River Tay. From Newport on Tay one can see Ninewells hospital on the other side of the Tay which is the main hospital for the region and most of NE Fife goes there for treatment, that is except for wheelchairs. There s perfectly good wheelchair service there but Fifers have to go to Edinburgh. It seems that Ninewells does chairs like the Kuschall Champ but in Edinburgh it's a straight choice between GPV of RXS. [You remember the RXS; the advert went "I'd climb a mountain for a Quickie" to which most people said "in which case, iof you can climb the mountain, you won't need the chair!"

Anyway we are limited to what the 'local' service has to offer and there is no vouchers scheme.

I had and still do come to that th GPV an was astonished to find how much better to push it was over the RXS and other folding chair I have used in the past/ I got the Ti really to save weight lifting and space too. Well it does all those and pushes even better. Mins I got a bit more squeeze on the seat, 4", and a vertical back and the feel is great, and feel much more secure. Incidentally, I wasn't keen on the grey Ti finish but is is very scratch resistant and looks good with the black upholstery. I will get some Schwalbe Marathon tyres for it sometime in black so it ought to look the part then!

[PsychoSimon]

Yeah unfortunately shropshire wheelchair services I've found aren't the best to deal with.
I had to fill out a diary for a week to show how much time i need to spend on my own and driving etc. Absolute joke! they wanted me to have a standard nhs jobbie. I could understand if I was tetraplegic but I'm quite able bodied compared to some ( i hope that doesn't sound rude or anything it's not meant like that )

I'm happy with my chair though. A titanium one next time though i think!! Yours looks great wheels I've never had the pleasure of sitting in a ti, but have been in a couple of titanium chairs, i think the ti lite was one? I like the weight but I felt as though i was going to break it for some reason?
I think I'm just used to farm yard engineering and if it aint heavy it aint right!! lol