Spokeguards or spoke guards or wheel cover or hub caps. They are, quite simply, plastic covers designed to sit on the wheel of a wheelchair. Traditionally they were used to avoid fingers or items of clothing of the wheelchair user being caught between the spokes of the wheels. More recently, they have become a fashion item and are used more for decorative purposes rather than functional use. Whatever you want to call them, they are designed and marketed under the name of SpokeGuards, the trading name of Diversity & Equality Limited
SpokeGuards or spoke guards?
The exciting aspect of spoke guards is they can be printed to display almost any image the wheelchair user decides upon. From a personal photograph of a family pet to a full collage of photographs; from a simple Ying Yang black and white image to a full colour rainbow or coloured background with exquisite detail, all is possible. Furthermore, the possibilities to show allegiance to a professional sporting bodies such as Premiership Football clubs is immediately obvious. With protected images, such as Premiership club logos, approvals and permissions have to be obtained from the specific club to use their logos. Most are quite happy to grant this permission although the time taken to obtain approvals varies dramatically from one club to the next.
There is also the possibility to use other images covered by copyright, such as Disney characters or Marvel superheroes, once the approval process has been achieved. This processes may be a little more protracted in that the copyright owners often are more involved with multimillion pound film rights and therefore, an approval for a few pairs of spokeguards is often low down the priority list. Still, success has been achieved with organisations such as One Direction, Little Mix, Sonic the Hedgehog and Lucas Films for Star Wars characters.
If you have a favourite character, image or photograph that you would like to see displayed on the side of your wheelchair, please contact SpokeGuards for a mock up just exactly how they would look. Call 07 584 207 019 and ask for Frank.