Champions and New Chairs

Another weekend and we are back at the lake for some rowing. Saturday morning is cold with a good frost and then cloud cover to keep it cool.  I do eventually warm up and have a good relaxing row. That afternoon I head out for a longer push with Denise, Thomas stays at home to do home work. A southerly change has been forecast to hit later in the afternoon and as I have been known to do I fail to get organised very quickly and we don't get away until late afternoon. The push starts really we with gentle cross winds and quite warm weather, this however changes just as we are about to head home. As we turn south to head home the southerly hits. What is usually a quick push with a gentle down gradient has become a full on battle into a chilly southerly, this push is starting to remind me of that session at Mayfield with gale north west winds :-(  Anyway we get it done and I am rather lucky compared to Denise who rode next me and is chilled to the max.

The next day we head to Christchurch via Lincoln with Denise, Thomas, myself, my chair, Thomas's bike and my racing chair all packed in the car. We are heading to Lincoln to meet up with Ben Lucas.  Ben is a racing chair guru having represented NZ in both the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games. I can remember seeing Ben when I was at Burwood where he works as CEO for the Spinal Trust, he had the coolest looking chairs and always speed around with ease and grace. After a cup of tea and a meet the family we head out for a short push so that Ben can give me some pointers on the best way to push the chair. This goes well and when we get back to Ben's place he suggests that he might have a chair that might suit my body shape better. The chair gets dug out of the attic and we then have to fit an extra chair into the car, help we need a really big shoe horn!! I tell Ben that I will be back for more help when I can and head away.

The New Racing Chair from Ben Lucas