This is very exciting, we've made it to the beach for the first time since Craig's
been in a wheelchair!
Hello again everyone. So today we are pretty excited
because we have got our hands on this a Batec hybrid electric hand bike
attachment. This is something that Craig has been wanting since he left rehab or
even while he was still at rehab and we have finally got it. So before we get
into the video I just want to give a huge thank you to Wheelpower and the wheelwrights
2020 fund, Chris Dines and Geo specialty chemicals and everyone else who
have contributed to fundraisers over the last year, without your help it would not
have been possible to get this and it's going to make a huge difference so thank
you so much. So in this video we want to see how much freedom the batec can
bring to Craig. So since we're in North Wales right now we thought what better
place to put it through its paces and see what it can do. We've got the
mountains, we've got the countryside, we've got mud and right now we're on the
beach to see how well it can cope with sand
This is very exciting, we've made it to the beach for the first time since Craig's
been in a wheelchair
Craig's just getting to zoom around on the beach and I'm trailing behind walking
at the moment.
Compact sand seems to be all right.
Slightly wet sand seems to be
alright. So the sand's a little bit deeper here but it's still going through pretty well.
If it was really deep sand that you really struggled to walk through I think it would
still struggle, so it's not going to do any sand or any beach, but for most
beaches it's pretty good. He's loving it, I haven't seen him have this much fun
for ages!
So that's 20 kilometers an hour which is quite fun in a wheelchair.
We're pretty impressed with it in this case so thumbs up for that. So this is
pretty deep sand here and it has sunk a bit. Craig said as long as he kept up his
momentum he was alright to get over it but stopping just sunk down into it. So
didn't do quite as well on that bit but just about managed to get through.
So we
are walking up to Aber Falls which is a waterfall in North Wales and we thought
this would be a good opportunity to test out how the Batec can cope with this
sort of slightly hilly gravelly terrain. And this is somewhere that we wanted to
go for a while, but we haven't gone to before because we thought would be very
difficult to get to just in Craig's manual wheelchair alone without any sort of
power assist. So now that we've got this, we thought we'd try it out and see whether we
can get there. Ooh losing grip. Too gravelly and it's basically the wheel just
spins and then starts to skid backwards which means that we might need to do a
combination of Craig using this and then me also pushing him from behind at the
same time to make it. So we just came up this hill which was a little bit
difficult I needed to push Craig the whole way up the hill but it wasn't that
bad, we made it. This is the worst bit, so now the path is like this, flatter most
of the way. So hopefully we should be able to make it. So we thought today
would be a really good day to come to the waterfall because yesterday and most of
the last week it has been raining a lot, really heavy, so hopefully that means today
the waterfall will be quite impressive.
I thought you had it. Okay, so I think we found another section where the Batec can't do it on its
own and we're gonna need another bit of me pushing again but hopefully this is just
a small section. We seem to have made it up most of the hills now I had to do a
little bit more pushing but we finally seem to have got to a bit where it's a little
bit flatter and we can see the fall up ahead so hopefully we're not too far off.
Still not sure if we'll actually be able to make it all the way there because right in front
of the falls it does get quite narrow and steep but we should be able to get
close enough so that we can actually see them anyway. So one thing we found that
has improved the traction a little bit is instead of trying to going straight up the
hill to zig-zag like this going across the hill keeps the grip a little bit
better than going straight up the hill. Craig has been using this walk mode here
on the Batec in today's test because I'm walking so we're just testing out how well the walk
mode can do.
So we're just approaching the waterfall but there are some stairs just there and
this path is getting narrower. I can't remember whether there's a way around or not or if
it's gonna be the end for us. So we just made it up this really narrow path
with a lot of difficulty. There was big stones, really narrow, really steep, loads
of big stones, so it was pretty challenging, now we're just gonna get to the waterfall
before it gets dark. So there's the waterfall, we're almost there. So this bit's
quite deep and a bit rocky so Craig's going carefully down make sure he
doesn't tip over. It's a little bit precarious with this drop to the side.
We finally made it but unfortunately as soon as we get here it started pouring down
Go go go!
So we've come here to test out the Batec and you might recognize this
place from one of our previous videos where we try to climb this mountain in
Craig's wheelchair just with the freewheel and I had to do a lot pushing.
It was really difficult but now we're testing out the Batec to see how much
difference the Batec makes. So far it's very effective, we already stopped quite
a few times last time and we haven't had to stop at all. So this is one of the sections that
we really struggled with last time, just this bit here, so let's see how the Batec does.
Much better by the looks of it. A bit of difficulty
Aww almost. One thing we have discovered is you can do this combination of
pushing on a back wheel and using the little throttle the Batec has to go up
something a little bit steep.
We've already made it to the lake, this must be at least half the time it took
us than last time. We were so tired and exhausted as well and now it just feels
like it's just a gentle stroll, Craig's not tired yet either.
The Batec handled that trail really well, it was so much easier than last
time when we came with just the freewheel. It was nice to be able to do it
almost completely independently. It did get stuck a couple of times but
compared to last time just a freewheel where I needed help pretty much 80% of
the time there it was so much easier. So it was nice to do this direct
comparison to see just how much difference the Batec can make.
So for
today's tests we've come down here to this forest where there are loads of
bike paths to test out the bike function of the Batec. So far we've been riding on
a range of paths from gravel roads to off-road tracks and so far the Batec
has handled everything really well.
So this is it more of a Foresty track
there's no gravel here, it's a bit bit more bumpy but the Batec seems to be
handling it quite well.
So the nice thing about the Batec is it has these five
power levels indicated by these lights here. So the other day when I was with
Claire on the beach, I was using the walk mode and that limits the speed to
about a walking pace, so that was good for then, and today I'm using speed three
or four to keep up with Claire on the bike and it goes all the way up to speed five
if you're going even faster. So we're coming up to a big hill and Claire's struggling a
bit but I can just cheat by pressing this button up.
You can then increase our speed.
Sayonara sucker!
So this is maximum speed now we're going
16 kilometers an hour but up a hill so it does go a little bit slower up hills than it
does down but it's not too bad. So one thing we've been missing since Craig's accident is
being able to cycle it together. So we do have another hand bike which we've shown
in some videos but the problem is when Craig uses that bike
if we're going uphill, any sort of hill, even a very low hill, he often struggles
quite far behind because he's just using his arms to power it and I'm using my
legs. So what we've really enjoyed about the Batec is that because it's got the
power assist, it basically fills the gap between leg muscles and arm muscles so
we can actually ride along together a very comfortable speed.
So the Batec has really been a game changer for me in terms of cycling
because the power assist makes up the difference between my arm muscles and
Claire's legs so I can still pedal and feel like I'm having good exercise and
the power makes up difference in the speed so I can still keep up with Claire
and we can have a nice time together, and without being completely exhausted and
having really sore shoulders like 10 minutes in.
Oh dear, we've reached an impasse. So we're
on the supposed bike path and we have got slightly stuck. So one limitation
we've discovered with the Batec is that it can struggle going up hills. So
when you go up hill your weight tends to be back over the rear wheels, now this is
fine on a normal bike because that's where your power is coming from, so it
still has grip to push you up the hills, however on the Batec because the
Batec is a front-wheel drive and your weights at the back, the front wheel
doesn't have as much grip on the hill and it struggles to get any traction on
the ground to pull you up. So to help with a grip we've been adding lots extra
weight over the front wheel. Now the Batec does come with two small weights
at the front but they're not enough, so we've been adding lots of heavy weight
into the bag of the front here. Now adding the extra weight has helped a bit
but unfortunately it's not enough and we're still really struggling on the
steep hills and that is the biggest problem with the Batec.
So today we're going to be testing out grass and mud to see how well the Batec
can cope with those
So when it's flat the Batec handles grass and deep mud quite well but, as
soon as an up hill gets involved there's no chance you just lose grip
straightaway. So after testing at the Batec, we can sum up our experience
with three questions. First of all, is the Batec the ultimate wheelchair
attachment for freedom? No, in our experience it wasn't the ultimate
attachment because it couldn't handle the hills. While it has the power for
steep hills it just does not have the grip. But does the Batec bring more
freedom to our lives? Yes, it definitely does, because we can go
to so many more places now that we've got it and we were able to go before we
had it. And finally, are we glad that we've got the Batec and would we buy
it again?
And the answer is yes we definitely would because although it's
not the perfect attachment it does add a lot to our lives. So we hope you enjoyed
our quick review about the Batec, if you'd like to see a more in-depth review
where we cover things like battery life, top speed and portability, then let us
know down in the comments below. If you did enjoy the review please give it a
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videos like this. Thank you for watching see in the next one, bye!