As much as I hate to start this entry with a Limp Bizkit lyrical reference (or song titl for that matter) in the title head, that's what this entry will be about ... Rollin'!
Today (or yesterday now as of this writting) I got my chair back from the shop. It really needed some repairs and new pieces badly. I had made a list on Tuesday of the things that I needed replaced and thought "well, that'll do it!". I wrote down that I needed new back wheels (both tires and tubes actually since my tires are shredded to bits and the tubes were just about toast .. you can only repair those things so many times!) plus I needed new bearings for my smaller front wheels. When George (the repairman who I have been dealing with for almost the past three chairs since I moved to London in 1988) came by to pick it up. All George could do was just shake his head and couldn't believe how badly it looked and was more so amazed that I was able to roll on the shot bearings on my right hand side to begin with and my nearly dead hind wheels. He loaded my chair into his van and took it off to the shop and said that he could possibly have it back by 5pm.
I got a call almost a few hours later saying he couldn't deliver my chair because of an "emergency" of some sort that needed immediate attending to and appologized for it. The good news he said was that he could have it to me on Wednesday early in the morning. I could go with that, doesn't really seem all that bad really. I mean what's a day without wheels? it won't kill me! So as I said at the start I got a call and said he was dropping it off while on his rounds and other service calls they had him doing that day. Well when he dropped off my chair I couldn't believe what I saw.
What he (George) did was nothing short of a miracle. What he did was replace my back wheels with new and better tires (some new type of tire made by the company Primo) and gave me new tubes. Also he replaced my top bearings in my casters and even my front wheels. But the greatest thing was how he reset my back wheels! It turns out that he re cambered by back ones by 8 degrees (which I haven't had set like since the day I got it almost 8yrs ago!). I couldn't believe it when I sat in it .. it felt like a whole new chair!
I can't even begin to fathom the $ amount that was put into this chair for all these repairs .. I just can't. The sad part though about all this refurbishing is that this is supposed to last me for the next five-six weeks till my new chair arrives. It's kind of a shame though because I LOVE how the chair feels now. I guess I could have had that "new" feeling if I properly maintained it for all these years. But alas, this chair has been my workhorse,my most dependable and above all most travelled chair I have ever had! (I can't count the mileage this thing has put on and not to mention the places this thing has been).
What you see below here is what my current chair, my Quickie GPV looks like. Mind you though keep in mind that it's in black and has black spoke protectors on it. If you can imagine that, that's how my chair looks.
<--- Not shabby eh?!
So after I marvelled at the repairs I took my chair for a spin since the weather was so nice today. I can't tell you how many miles I rolled today but it sure felt nice to roll far without having to worry about my chair breaking down. So I took it for a roll again this evening and went further than I did before. It felt nice, the weather was cool during the evening and my chair and I took one of our many spins around the neighbourhood like we always do when the weather gets nice!
But as I said though this chair's line is coming to an end soon and a new one will take it's place. What you see in this picture below is what my new one will look like.
It's a really snazzy looking piece of equipment and at the moment it's the Porsche or the Ferarri of the wheelchair world. It's pretty slick, pretty expensive and can go pretty fast from what I have been told. It's made out of titanium and is pretty light. I can't wait for the new chair to come ... but it's a shame a old "friend" has to be retired to make room for it.
