u/pretty-pen-5

Hello! I'm looking for some ideas or advice for an ambitious, hopeful, possibly-too-difficult-for-us project.

I used to love cycling around for leisure and my husband still does. He's fit and healthy. I, however, have ME, which is very debilitating for me. I struggle daily with fatigue and pain, both of which are made worse by exertion / exercise. I continue to hope and try to find a way to improve my condition, but as it is, I have no way of cycling on my own. I miss getting outside.

Regarding my mobility, some days I use a wheelchair, and some days I can walk slowly, with/without crutches. It depends on my level of pain and fatigue on that day (and how much I've been walking in previous days). If I am seated, a back rest and preferably arm rests are pretty essential for me. The support that these give to my torso means my back pain is less intense, because my back muscles aren't as engaged.

We would love to have a form of tandem bike that works for us. We think we'd have to either buy a used tandem to customise ourselves, or build a custom bike from tandem/bike parts.

Here's a wish list of the things we'd need, or would like, for our dream tandem:

• Two seats, one can be a standard man's seat, one more like a padded square seat, with a back rest and simple arm rests.

• Pedal powered, mostly by my husband. An electric assisted version would be great, but out of our budget.

• If possible, I'd like pedals too. This would mean I'm not restricted to just being a passenger, and on good days I could pedal too. The majority of the power would still be from my husband, but if I have the option of getting some gentle exercise when I am able to, that would be great.

• The normal tandem style (one in front, one behind) is fine with us. I've also seen some with side by side seats and some tricycle versions. These look interesting, but are they too wide and impractical for country roads and passing cars? Also, a wide and heavy bike would be a negative for my next point, which is...

• If a foldable tandem is a possibility, that would be even better. We wouldn't be restricted to the area we live in, we could also travel around and go on holidays, taking it with us.

Practical limitations:

• Our car is a decent size, but not a van. We hope to one day be able to afford something like a Transporter / Sprinter / Trafic and convert it into a simple camper (we could adapt it to my needs and make travel easier for us), but we can't afford a car upgrade for a while. So, if a folding tandem is possible, we'd want it to fit in a medium sized car when folded / broken down.

• We don't have the budget for the fancy accessible tandems selling online for thousands. Our budget would be in the hundreds, spread over the winter months whilst we work on it.

• We don't have any bike or mechanical experience. My husband's good with woodwork and has plenty of tools, but aside from bike puncture repairs he's never worked on bikes or cars.

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Is this too ambitious for us? Is it possible? I have no idea where to start with this. Any pointers and help would be much appreciated.

Please note - this is not a situation I am in (thankfully). We were wondering about this today during a conversation.

We don't know if UK insurers currently excludes wildfires under some sort of extreme weather event. But, we agreed that if insurance companies don't exclude wildfire damage already, they probably will exclude it soon.

Do you still have to pay your mortgage for the next, say, 25 years?

If you can't afford to rebuild your house out of pocket, what happens then? Is the site abandoned, and you have to rent somewhere?

Does contents cover still work, to replace all of your possessions, or is that excluded under extreme weather too?