I love wheelchairs

Now that I'm working on a new project, I've updated my twitter profile. I wanted it to be both accurate and - to bring an under-used term back into circulation - jaunty. It now reads:

'Information Architect at Cambridge University Press. E-learning enthusiast, especially for universities. Able-bodied, but my favourite invention is wheelchairs.'

Now that I've put this into the public sphere, I have an excuse to elaborate.

I just love wheelchairs.

I've never used a wheelchair. More accurately, I've never *had* to use a wheelchair - there's still dents in the walls at home where my cousins and I played dodgem cars with my Grandma's chair while she was on the couch. Only a couple of my friends use them, and only sometimes. But I love wheelchairs.

The first wide-spread wheelchairs came out after World War One - which makes sense when you consider the number of injured soldiers returning. They were mostly made of wicker, and unwieldy. The first folding, lightish-weight, cheap wheelchairs came out in the 1930s.

And those wheelchairs were awesome. They were awesome because they meant that a group of people who, before the wheelchair, had a hard time leaving their house could now leave their house. That's important.

Most people who use a wheelchair can walk - just not very far, or more importantly, not as far as they need to. Most can also use crutches, but crutches are really hard to use because they require that you use your hands. Imagine trying to carry a pint back to your table from the bar with crutches, and you'll see the problem.

But wheelchairs... wheelchairs are amazing. With a wheelchair, you can leave the house under your own steam. Wheelchairs are so amazing that the basic design for a folding chair hasn't changed in seventy years - it's lasted longer than the incandescent lightbulb. The first folding wheelchair was so good, it basically didn't need updating.

Apart from one thing. Which is that actually, it did.

This is why I love wheelchairs - they're a perfect design that gets better. Check out the electric wheelchair! Your arms are smaller and thinner than your legs, the muscle power available to move the mass of your body (plus the mass of the chair) will always be less than legs can provide. Maybe your arms aren't well-coordinated either. It doesn't matter - with electricity, you can go for miles!

Check out the hydraulic wheelchair! You're at the pub and you can't hear the conversation? You can't look people in the eye because they're standing and you're too low? Up you go! The hydraulic wheelchair is excellent.

Have you ever heard of murderball? It's wheelchair rugby, with just a hint of Mad Max. Just look at those chairs. They're hardcore.

There are roadworthy petrol-driven cars for wheelchair users that you can wheel into, drive in, park, and get out of. Amazing.

Ever try to ride a bike on the beach? It's hard. Bike tyres are thin, and sink into sand - so do wheelchair tyres, preventing access to that good salt water. Thank goodness for the all-terrain chair!

Nothing, however, beats the powertrike snap-on electric tricycle converter. I love this. It will snap onto the cross-bar of any standard folding chair, and turn it into a dang motorcycle. When you get where you're going (your Auntie's house, a restaurant, the pub) where you need to occupy less space, you just snap it off and leave it in a corner. Genius.

(This is why my husband won't let me talk to wheelchair users. I only know about the powertrike because I accosted a table of people in a cafe, wanting to know more about the converter. The girl who actually owned it was very nice about it.)

To scale back for a second...

When I was at Primary School, there was a boy with cerebral palsy who steered his electric chair with a cup on his chin.

Without the chair and cup, he could not control his own position in space. With it, he did.

In 2000, I was in the stadium to see Louise Sauvage win the 5000 metres at the Sydney Paralympics. I screamed myself hoarse. Her super-amazing-racing-chair didn't win it, but she did.

Without that chair, she couldn't have won it. With it, she did.

Wheelchairs are amazing.