We all know that with limited funds and time off work, a “stay home vacation” is often the only way to get a rejuvenating break in our lives. And so it was with us this fall…
With early November high temperatures in the upper 50s, we decided to take a break from putting our yard to bed to go walking on a favorite wheelchair accessible trail in an area just north of Salt Lake City. The popular Farmington Creek Trail runs behind the Lagoon Amusement Park and it is fully paved and in good condition for wheelchairs. Dogs are also allowed on the trail so everyone in the family can go.
We took the opportunity to get some photos for this – our first blog post – which will talk about an attachment we bought for Jamie’s wheelchair a few years ago that has turned out to be a godsend for opening up a wider variety of areas we can navigate to.
Enter the Freewheel...
We learned about it when we were in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park in Northern California. After we parked at the visitors center there and were preparing to take a walk around, we saw a young woman in a wheelchair bend over and attach something to the front of her chair. Curious, we talked to her for a short time, asking her about what she called a “FreeWheel”. It was a swivel wheel that could be easily connected to the front converting the wheelchair into a sort of jogger stroller. I present a little information on what it does on our Tips page.
She talked about how the stability it provided expanded the places she could get to in her wheelchair. It was a convincing enough conversation that we looked up the FreeWheel when we got home. After considering it a bit and discussing Jamie’s wheelchair with someone from the company, we ordered one. We needed a special adapter, so our FreeWheel setup looks like this:
To put it on, we have to connect the adapter bar like this:
Then the FreeWheel just clips onto it as shown below:
If your wheelchair is designed in such a way that you already have a bar across the front, the adapter is not needed – you just attach it to the bar and you can do it while sitting in the chair! Jamie’s chair folds up, so we needed the adapter.
...and Ready to Roll
Once on, it lifts the front casters a couple inches off the ground and the wheel attachment itself adds a couple feet to the length of the chair providing the greater stability. Now you are ready to roll – literally. Off to the trail!
It really is paved underneath all of those crunched up leaves and in this picture, you can see that the wheel can swivel all the way around so you are not restricted in how to move the wheelchair:
As is the case with many paved trails like Farmington Creek, the roots from large trees can create ridges or even cracks in the pavement surface that are sometime treacherous to wheelchairs. No worries for the FreeWheel though – it just glides over them without dumping the chair like the casters do when caught in a crack. Jamie unknowingly rides in comfort while thinking of an upcoming trip we’ll do next year with our entire family:
We walk the entire trail – no spills or sudden stops – and end at the little pond at the top of a hill:
The FreeWheel is a bit pricey, but what wheelchair accessory isn’t? Still, I am glad we sprung for it since it is so portable and it opens the gate to places we couldn’t hope to get to without a full blown jogger stroller.