Cycling Without Age: age-friendly, inclusive trishaws offer free spins to less able people

Description

Cycling Without Age is a sustainable, award-winning, voluntary, age-friendly initiative, using specially designed trishaw bicycles to take people unable to cycle or walk for free, slow-cycling spins, piloted by trained volunteer pilots. A Danish idea, it was brought to Ireland in 2017 by volunteer Clara Clark and has since grown to 63+ trishaws all over Ireland. Trishaws are in care homes, community hospitals, day care centres, and in the community. Sponsors include local authorities, the HSE, Healthy Ireland, Local Sports Partnerships, and corporates. To date, there are 26 trishaws in Co. Dublin. With no paid staff, CWA uses its website, www.cyclingwithoutage.ie , FB Group, https://www.facebook.com/groups/181880685907296/ and Twitter, @age_cycling to communicate.
CWA is a whole new philosophy and thinking about movement and access for all ages and abilities. People through age or disability may not be able to cycle (or walk) for themselves. Consequently, they are less visible in our communities, less out and about. CWA trishaws make them visible again, taking them for free, slow-cycling spins. Freedom and fun are the purpose of CWA. Moving at 6- 8 km we have time to stop, admire the view, talk to people, pet dogs, watch children at play, feed the ducks, get an ice-cream or a coffee. My dream is that everyone can have access to a CWA ride, using shared trishaws in each local area.
Having grown from one trishaw in 2017 to over 63 now nationwide, the impact has been exponential, with regular enquiries from people on how to get a trishaw and how to become a volunteer pilot. Initially it was care homes, but since 2020 local authorities are now sponsoring trishaws for use in the community, offering a new social, sustainable model of active travel. This has raised the need for safer, segregated cycling infrastructure, which the LAs are now having to address. CWA trishaws are now recognised and mentioned in Active Travel planning.
CWA is a totally voluntary organisation, a registered Irish Charity (#20206032). It relies heavily on using word of mouth and social media: its website, FB Group (663 followers) and Twitter account (over 1,620 followers) to spread the word, tell stories, share images, and notify people of our progress and events. The media, national and local, are part of telling our story. Social media makes it quick, efficient, cheap/free to share our progress. As the voluntary sole administrator/manager of CWA Ireland, speed and ease are essential for me to share our stories, set up meetings and events, engage with the public, and respond to relevant issues, such as submissions on Active Travel plans and segregated cycling infrastructure needs. Email makes it efficient to receive and respond to enquiries, arrange pilot training, liaise with local authorities, make submissions to government and LAs, sort out issues with trishaws, communicate with the CWA HQ and Copenhagen Cycles in Copenhagen, and keep people in the loop as necessary.
CWA is powered by volunteers. Without our volunteer pilots, we could not take our passengers for their free slow-cycling spins. Training the pilots in how to use the trishaws became imperative. Based on my own learning of how to manage a trishaw, I offer pilot training to all new volunteers. Pilot training is done ideally in situ using whichever model of trishaw they have purchased. Pilots must be over 18 and be confident cyclists. They do not need to be medically or mechanically trained. Pilots using community bikes do not need Garda vetting as they do not take out vulnerable people on their own. Each vulnerable person MUST be accompanied by a carer, who can be a family member, professional carer or a friend. Pilots volunteering in care homes are subject to the care home regulations. Trishaw owners/operators are responsible for regular maintenance and servicing of their trishaws.
The development of local authorities buying trishaw for community use required the innovation of online booking systems. This allows the public to Book a Ride and can been seen at www.thebikehub.ie online booking system used by DLR, Fingal and Dublin City Councils for their trishaws. When someone books a trishaw, an email is sent to the local panel of trained pilots. The first pilot to click they are available receives details of the time/date/location and name of client. This email system is backed up by a WhatsApp group for short notice bookings or changes.

Aim of Initiative

The aim of CWA is to allow people who cannot cycle/walk for themselves the opportunity to go for free, slow-cycling spins, piloted by trained volunteer cyclists. The whole concept is age-friendly and socially inclusive. Pilots give freely of their time to share stories, engage with the passengers, and give a wonderful outdoor cycling experience to vulnerable people. This brings our passengers back visible and being seen and connecting with their local community and environment. It normalises older age and disability and builds bridges between our passengers, their pilots, and their community. I am now exploring the idea of social prescribing by health professionals to CWA. Fun and freedom are the main aims of Cycling Without Age.

Who is it aimed at

CWA is aimed at anyone who though age, infirmity or disability cannot cycle or walk for themselves. Our passengers are/have been older, of different ages with many physical, neurological, and mental health issues, blind people (and their guide dogs!), service users from St. John of God and Enable Ireland, and young people with Downs or autism. As the spins are free, they can come again and again if they wish.

3 Steps critical to success

1. The Ireland founder, Clara Clark, buying the first Irish trishaw as a demonstration bike to explain what a trishaw is and how it works.
2. Even though it is a voluntary initiative run totally by volunteers, the Ireland founder Clara Clark runs it like a business, as I have over 45 years business experience, 30 of them self-employed.
3. Communicating promptly and efficiently by email, phone and using social media to tell the story of CWA and respond to enquiries from all over Ireland. Being clear in the purpose and aims of CWA for everyone: passengers, pilots, sponsors, the media, and the public.

3 Challenges in Planning / Delivery

1. As a volunteer in my 70s, I have to be very clear and committed to what I want to achieve. I must make the time to respond quickly and clearly to each enquiry, from care homes, from public bodies, from the public and particularly from the media.
2. To start the whole idea, my husband and I bought the first-ever trishaw in Ireland, from after-tax pension income. We had no idea if there would be any interest or take up. It was a risk we were prepared to take, and it worked!
3. I needed the skills and the confidence to be able to speak about the initiative to anyone asking, including doing a lot of newspaper, radio, and TV interviews. I now do quite a lot of presenting at conferences and events on Social Innovation, Cycling and Society, The Future of Cycling in Rural Ireland, and other events.

3 Outcomes / Benefits

1. The first outcome and benefit of CWA was the immediate interest in and initial take up of people asking how to become involved, how to get a trishaw, and to become a pilot. That told me that this idea was relevant and that it could become real in Ireland. The volunteer pilots gain a huge amount of satisfaction from their piloting experience.
   By now, hundreds of passengers have benefitted from going out for spins, several hundred pilots have been trained and are offering their services freely to pilot the passengers. All the carers and families of our passengers are benefitting from seeing how their people enjoy the freedom and fun that CWA brings them.
2. Once care homes began to get their own trishaws, they found that the residents loved the cycling experience, the ‘wind in their hair’ and the feeling of freedom it gave them to get out of the home and see the world. Social inclusion became a real possibility with CWA. It also gave the staff and carers, including the families, the opportunity to see their relative in a different light, out cycling and having fun. It became noticeable that passengers with dementia, neurological and mental health issues became calmer and more relaxed which out on the trishaw.
3. When the local authorities came on board to buy trishaws for people in the community (i.e. not in care homes), this expanded the benefits to the whole community, including people of all ages and abilities, and it allowed more people to become volunteer pilots in their locale, blending caring services with active cyclists. Cycling Without Age is now a recognised form of active travel being supported and mentioned by the National Transport Authority and all the Local Authority Active Travel officers as an essential form of active travel. This is making them change their dimensions for cycle lane widths and for access to parks. These changes benefit far more people than CWA trishaws users.