When I got my new chair, I also got me one of these:

It’s called a Freewheel, and you can get one at Invictus Active where I got mine. Also see that link for some other, unbearably cool motorised stuff.

The Freewheel attaches to the footrest, as you can see here:

It lifts your castors off the ground and provides a third front wheel which is more able to deal with rough terrain.

I’ve used it quite a lot, now, and I really like it. I recommend it even for general pavement use, providing you’re not going into any shops or twisty passages, all alike. Manoeuvrability certainly takes a hit, you take up a hell of a lot more space and you can’t stop without putting on the brakes as the front wheel is (deliberately) unstable. But it sails over small kerbs and bumps in pavements and makes it much easier to get up onto larger kerbs. I really wish I’d taken it with me when I went to Glasgow, but it would have been awkward on the train. It does make pushing significantly more difficult when there’s a steep camber, however. Watch out for that.

The Freewheel is meant for offroad use, though, and I generally use it with a set of offroad wheels to get into the nature reserve close to my house. Unlike the guy in the picture, I haven’t done any wheelies at the top of mountains, but I’ve travelled along some dirt tracks and gone up and down some pretty steep and uneven paths.

And it’s a lot easier. The problem of rear wheel traction doesn’t go away, of course, so you need to be realistic in your expectations, but overall, and if you have the upper body strength, I recommend getting one. If there’s ever another sunny day around here, I’ll try to remember to take my camera with me and post pictures of the sorts of terrain I’m talking about. You won’t be terribly impressed, but it will give you an idea of what sort of surfaces the Freewheel can and can’t cope with.

Attaching and removing the Freewheel is very easy from inside the chair. It just clips on with a lever and when you move forward the front wheel swings into position, lifting your casters off the ground. Do the same in reverse to remove it… but then you’re left with a bloody great wheel and chunk of aluminium to cart around. I understand there’s an attachment you can buy for your pushbar to hang it from, but I haven’t seen one actually for sale and I imagine it would play havoc with any bag you have attached to the back of the chair.

The engineering on the Freewheel is very nice, from conception to build, but you can tell it’s built and sold by engineers. Adjustment is a little fiddly and seems over-complicated until you understand it. The instructions are awful. Don’t even look at those, find a YouTube video instead, there are plenty out there.

Like everything wheelchair-related, of course, the Freewheel isn’t cheap. At time of writing, Invictus Active is selling them for £375 (in a variety of colours, should you be inclined). I paid a little less. Before you buy, make sure you have the right sort of footrest. There are adaptors for the various different kinds, but they cost extra.

You might be able to get a free trial of the Freewheel, if you shop around. I’d recommend that.