Here’s some pics of our wheelchair tune up event earlier this month at the DCC! We had 12 people show up looking for maintenance tips, toolkits, and repair referrals and were able to give all of them our mini-toolkits. We were able to help fix some issues, which always feels amazing. But some problems were too complex for “on the spot” fixing. We also, in every event so far, come into contact with one or two or more people who are in precarious life situations, and kind of “slip through the cracks” of the system and cannot seem to get real help, but desperately need mobility gear or need a better chair. GOAT is trying very hard to scrounge them better chairs, new batteries, and so on, in collaboration with other Bay Area organizations like EDI, CIL, and ILRCSF, who we deeply appreciate!
As usual, the most popular wheelchair problems at our Tune-Up were batteries in need of replacement, and casters (front or rear) where the bearings are destroyed or the casters are otherwise out of alignment. Everyone, please protect your caster bearings with end caps to protect them from rain and dirt!
Our next Tune-Up will be May 5th at the DCC.
Olga and I will also be in Berkeley this week, Saturday April 25, at the Mutual Aid Swap meet for medical needs! Here is a photo of us at the DCC with my new, amazing backpack of wheelchair maintenance gear. I was not happy with my chaotic toolbag and it was hard to carry on the bus, so now I have this backpack with a dozen or so slots to keep things organized. It also opens up flat for a work surface and to show all the tools. Very handy!
I want to thank our amazing little crew of tuner-uppers and volunteers this month: Vince and Angello from ILRCSF, Olga and Emma from GOAT, Aaron and Luke from Streets Forward, Dana from Make Good West, and Stef from Circuit Launch. You all were fabulous and contributed to the good vibes of our event!
Here, Dana watches alongside Louette, whose mobility scooter is being opened up by Stef the roboticist! Louette reported, “Baby’s on her last legs”. Dana and Stef had a look at the controls of Louette’s scooter because it is behaving oddly when it goes in reverse. Conclusion (which I agreed with ) To really fix this, you would need to completely take apart the throttle and the stuff around the potentiometer because the problem is something to do with the potentiometer; it could be simple like a pinched wire or something loose or stuck in there, or it could mean replacing some parts. Vince’s opinion was the whole scooter needs replacing as it is quite old and a lot of its parts are about to fail.
In this photo, Angello and Dana are fixing up Brian’s hand brakes. His power chair is an unusual design I haven’t seen before, with big “parking brakes”.
Brian, who has a background in citizen advocacy and organizing, also has a plan for a powerchair users club in San Francisco, and I said I’d post about it. It will be called The Ironside Club, and will have group rides, like the bike group Critical Mass, to destinations downtown to have lunch or see the sights. The group will also collect information about buildings and curb cuts or sidewalks that need access upgrades and report on them. Here is the flyer for the club — please contact Brian if you are interested in joining: brian.e.webster@gmail.com.
Finally I would like to share this photo of Vince and Angello outside the DCC after the event. Vince rode that giant scooter to the event and he is taking the smaller one back to ILRCSF to try and fix it up with an appropriate battery and charger. Here, van service is failing him and Angello is plotting to tie the small scooter to the big one for a tow across town. Not pictured: Me laughing my ass off at their mobility scooter tow truck hack, and also admiring how they look like such cool cats.
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