The local chapter of Cycling Without Age took its first senior for a bike ride today.
The weather was perfect for Rocky Mountain Village resident Doug Finney and his daughter Linda Krawczyk to go on a scenic ride around Fernie with chapter founder Melanie Wrigglesworth peddling one of the chapter’s two trishaws.
Finney, who is 86, was pumped to be going for a bike ride.
“He used to be an avid rider in his youth,” said Krawczyk, who said Finney had spent a lot of time riding around the Scottish highlands when he was younger, before he and his family moved to Canada in the 1950s.
Cycling Without Age is a global organization that started in Denmark which seeks to help seniors get outdoors and enjoy the freedom of cycling again.
“We’re giving them their right to the wind in their hair,” said Wrigglesworth, who as founder of the local chapter has been working behind the scene to get Cycling Without Age up and running in Fernie for two years now.
The chapter was set up thanks to community donations, grants from the Columbia Basin Trust, the City of Fernie’s discretionary funds and industry support.
The local chapter has two bikes called trishaws – which allow a cyclist – or ‘pilot’ to transport two passengers around town, giving them a front-row seat for all the sights you might miss driving past in a car.
Wrigglesworth said the local chapter was all about “getting seniors outside and on a bike and in the fresh air.”
Seniors that would like a ride with the local chapter can contact a coordinator through Cycling Without Age, and nominate a day and time. The chapter can then work to line up a pilot for their request.
The rides are free, and around town.
Wrigglesworth said that for now Cycling Without Age would be limited to Fernie, but she was hoping that in the future they’d take a bike to Sparwood once a week to take seniors there for a ride as well.
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