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Pedaling along the Platte is 'magical' for these Colorado senior citizens

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by
Brian Willie, Kyle Cooke
• Published on • Last modified on
Two women sit in a trishaw -- a three-wheeled electric bicycle with a carriage on front -- as part of Cycling Without Age Littleton's free ride program
Rocky Mountain PBS

LITTLETON, Colo. — Copenhagen, Denmark is nearly 5,000 miles from Littleton, but the Danish city’s influence has made Molly McNally Dunn “realize how glad I am to be alive.”

McNally Dunn is a participant in the Littleton chapter of Cycling Without Age (CWA), a nonprofit that started 10 years ago in Denmark. Using a trishaw — a three-wheeled e-bike with a bench for two passengers in the front — Cycling Without Age’s volunteer cyclists, called pilots, can help elderly people and others who struggle with mobility experience the flowing freedom of a bike ride.

McNally Dunn explained that because of issues with her back, she can no longer ride a bike or go on long walks. “And so when I first started with the trishaw,” she explained, “I [couldn’t] believe — getting back in nature — what it did to my soul.”

Colorado Voices

Cycling Without Age

Cycling Without Age has 2,700 chapters in 52 countries. A full map is available here. In addition to Littleton, CWA’s chapters in Colorado include Boulder, Greeley, Lakewood, Lafayette, Englewood and Colorado Springs. Other cities and towns in Colorado, including Denver, are currently fundraising to purchase trishaws of their own.

Barb Lotze is the co-founder of Cycling Without Age’s Littleton chapter, which started in 2019 with two volunteer pilots. Using a trishaw from Copenhagen, Lotze and her team provided a dozen rides in their first year. But in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down almost all indoor activity and many senior citizens, especially those living in nursing homes, felt isolated, Lotze and the pilots gave 350 rides.

The program’s demand has grown exponentially and now, CWA Littleton has nearly 50 pilots. Last year, they provided 1,120 rides in Littleton and so far this year, they’re already approaching 900 rides.

Being able to soak in the sun and hear the rippling waters of the South Platte River is “magical” for McNally Dunn.

“Getting out on the trishaw, it’s a social event,” she explained.

Lotze said her organization has given bike rides as part of anniversaries and birthday parties, including one for a woman who turned 103 years old. (According to Cycling Without Age, the oldest person to receive a ride on a CWA trishaw was 110-year-old Pauline Angleman in California.)

“We saw in COVID … the reality of the isolation of seniors and those with challenges,” Lotze said when speaking about what motivates her team of volunteers. “And it just magnified during COVID.”

A recent report found that about 25% of Americans ages 65 and up are considered socially isolated. And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), social isolation is linked to serious health conditions like heart disease, dementia and depression.

“Our mission — and we started this in COVID — is that we want to ensure that the most vulnerable never become the least visible,” Lotze said.

Lotze said the pilots benefit from their interactions with the seniors, too. "Their stories, their wisdom,” she explained, “they gift us so much and it gives them a purpose and a being.”

To schedule a ride with CWA Littleton, you can email the organization’s scheduler, Jinny Netoles, at jbsnet50@gmail.com. If you want to start your own CWA chapter, click here.

Brian Willie is the content production manager at Rocky Mountain PBS. You can reach him at brianwillie@rmpbs.org.

Kyle Cooke is the digital media manager at Rocky Mountain PBS. You can reach him at kylecooke@rmpbs.org.

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