BJ’s just got a new set of off-road wheelchair wheels and we hope this will help make travel easier, particularly for our trip to the Northern Territory.
I’m not good at accepting we can’t do something when we travel. If we ask about access and someone says, “Oh no, that isn’t wheelchair accessible” I tend to quiz them for a good while to see if we can manage it, despite their assurances we can’t.
Last time we went to the Northern Territory BJ was in a back carrier so our only limitation was Hubby’s stamina. As a result, we gave most things a go and had a fantastic experience.
We know our upcoming trip will be different, there is no more back carrier, it is a wheelchair all the way. My first thought was to take BJ’s beach wheelchair because we know it would deal well with the terrain. The airlines would have transported it for us but as we will be doing some road-tripping we had to find a car hire company that provided a roof pod. I couldn’t find any rental companies that even allowed roof racks on their vehicles so travelling with the beach wheelchair wasn’t an option.
WHY WE CHOSE OFF ROAD TYRES
We decided to go with off-road tyres and as you can see they’re the monster truck version of wheelchair tyres. These are 24 x 3 inch tyres and will hopefully cope with all we put them through.
When I first saw them I thought they would weigh a lot more which didn’t appeal as I lift the wheelchair in and out of the station-wagon. They only weigh 500grams more than BJ’s regular wheels (yes, Hubby weighed them to make a point).
WHY NOT A FREE WHEEL?
We considered a Free Wheel but there were some stumbling blocks with that too. BJ’s chair has a box not just a foot plate so that made attaching the Free Wheel a problem. Even if we removed the box we decided that the narrow tyres on BJ’s wheelchair would just sink in any red sand and wouldn’t give BJ a good ride on any rough surfaces.
These off-road tyres will be used for weekend outings and our travels. We’ll keep the skinny wheels for day-to-day. The hand rim sits closer to the off-road wheels so I worry BJ’s hand will callous more, the black tyres may be harder wearing on floor surfaces and on walls if bumped.
When we travel with the off-road tyres we’ll carry a bike pump and a tyre repair kit just to be sure we don’t get caught out with a puncture.
There is a bit of fiddling around each time we swap between the two types of wheels but Hubby seems to be getting pretty quick with this. Due to the larger diameter of the off-road wheels, the brakes need to be adjusted and the height of the front castor wheels needs to be altered.
SPECIAL PRICE ON OFF-ROAD TYRES FOR HWWT READERS
In the meantime, if you are interested in a set of off road wheels Leon from Mogo Wheelchairs is offering HWWT readers a special price of $600 including hand rims. The regular price is $850. Bargain! Just mention Have Wheelchair Will Travel when enquirying.
As you can see, we put loads of research into our travels and we believe this is key to a successful trip. There are always unexpected challenges with travel but we think the memories are worth the effort.
This is not a sponsored post.
What do you think of BJ’s wheels? Do you think they’d be good for you?
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Where can we buy these tires?