Bicycle-Powered Rickshaws Get Older People Out and About

On a visit to Denmark, Kelly Talcott gave a Polish woman in a nursing home a ride in a bicycle rickshaw. The woman missed her old neighborhood and had trouble getting across town to the Polish grocery store to pick up her favorite candy.

“We go out, we’re talking, we’re enjoying ourselves, we get the candy, and then three and a half hours later we come back,” he says. “She kept wanting to go out and see more, be around people.”

Talcott is now a U.S. captain for Cycling Without Age, an international movement of volunteers who pedal older people and their family members on outdoor excursions.

Getting outside instead of sitting around watching TV or playing cards in their retirement community has changed how these folks and their loved ones relate to one another, Talcott says. “We are really not just about giving rides. We are mostly about having conversations, sharing memories, and creating new memories.”

Cycling Without Age’s specially designed rickshaw, which the organization calls a trishaw, seats the pilot in the back and the passengers up front, allowing for easy conversation. After about 30 minutes of training, pilots are ready to give their first ride. And they don’t have to be athletes; the bikes are partially powered with electricity.

Cycling Without Age got its start in Denmark, and Danish expatriates brought it to America. The first chapter started in Oshkosh, Wis., in 2015. More than 50 additional chapters have popped up across the country. The cost of buying one of the rickshaws and shipping it to the States is roughly $9,000. The organization has also gained popularity in Europe. In May, Scotland’s public-health and sport minister, Aileen Campbell, shown above piloting the rickshaw in the foreground, announced government funding to roll out the organization across the country.

Human interaction is what makes the organization so special, Talcott says. “These are people who feel like they’ve been warehoused,” he says. “It just makes them feel really good.”