2016 Good Sam Color Jam monies add TrioBike Taxi to facility
Three to go – three-wheelin’ ’round town.
Funds raised from the 2016 Good Sam Color Jam by walkers, runners, grants and other donors have provided the Good Samaritan Society of Moutain Lake – both tenants of The Lodge and residents of The Village – the opportunity to experiece three-tiimes the fun.
The TrioBike Taxi purchased by the monies from the second-annual Color Jam has arrived – and a threesome of folks are out touring Mountain Lake. The “trio” includes the volunteer “pilot” (driver), the pair of riders – and the three-wheeled specially-designed bike.
The idea for this type of bicycle was the brainstorming result of an individual – Ole Kassow of Denmark – and spread through a website her helped design, Cycling Without Age (www.cyclingwithoutage.org). The movement was begun by Ole in 2012 because he wanted to help the elderly get back on their bicycles, but with a solution to their limited mobility. The answer was the TrioBike Taxi (also know as the rickshaw bicycle), and he started offering free bike rides to the local nursing home residents.
Ole then got in touch with a civil society consultant, Dorthe Pedersen, at the municipality of Copenhagen, Denmark, who was intrigued by the idea and together they bought the first five special bicycles and launched Cycling Without Age, which has now spread to all corners of Denmark, and has now spread to Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Sweden, Finland, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Italy, Singapore, United States of America, Canada, New Zealand, Spain, Slovakia, Netherlands, France, Chile, several other countries around the world – and now, to Mountain Lake.
The volunteer drivers sign up for bike rides with the elderly through a simple booking system as often or as rarely as they want to. It’s all driven by people’s own motivation. As of November 2015, more than 63 of Denmark’s 98 municipalities offered Cycling Without Age from well over 400 rickshaws – and the numbers are still growing. More than 3,000 pilots ensure that the elderly get out of their nursing homes, out on the bikes to enjoy the fresh air and the community around them.
This opportunity provides the elderly the right to once again feel the wind in their hair.
