Transcript exported from the original video version. Note that it has not been copy edited.

00:00:12:05 - 00:00:36:21
John Simmerman
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Active Towns Channel. I'm John Simmerman. And today I have something very special. I have two guests on the Active Towns podcast. It is Gary Harty and Ole Kassow. Ole is the founder of Cycling Without Age, and Gary is one of the affiliates, one of the heads of the chapters for Cycling Without Age in Lakewood, Colorado.

00:00:36:21 - 00:01:02:00
John Simmerman
So without further ado, let's dive right into it with Gary and Oli. Enjoy. It is an absolute pleasure to welcome into the Active Towns podcast a very good friend, Gary and also Oli, all you're joining all the way from Copenhagen. Thank you so much. And Gary, you're coming in, dialing in from Lakewood, Colorado. Hey, welcome to you both.

00:01:02:28 - 00:01:04:02
Ole Kassow
Thank you.

00:01:04:02 - 00:01:05:19
Gary Harty
Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

00:01:06:15 - 00:01:27:07
John Simmerman
So what I love to do is to give my guests an opportunity just to, you know, quickly introduce themselves. So let's let's, you know, have you kick it off. Gary, go ahead and introduce yourself. Tell folks where you're from and what inspired you to be part of the Cycling without age organization.

00:01:27:07 - 00:02:02:25
Gary Harty
Yeah. Thank you, John. I lived in Denver metro area most of my life since the age of three. I've been involved in bicycle advocacy and bicycle safety education. Now for almost 40 years. I've done some racing, some self-supported, touring, touring, supported by a credit card, so I've done a little bit of everything. I started the Bicycle Advisory Team of Lakewood in 2015 to address what I felt were some of the shortcomings of bicycle infrastructure in the Lakewood.

00:02:03:03 - 00:02:31:13
Gary Harty
You know, at this point in my life, the bicycle represents the most sustainable form of transportation, both for my health and for the health of the environment. It was through the Lakewood Bicycle Advisory Team that you know, we're sharing videos with other advocacy groups. And it was in 2016, right around Thanksgiving, that I saw all this TEDx talk, which I believe was recorded in Norway in 2014, two years after the founding.

00:02:32:08 - 00:02:58:01
Gary Harty
And I thought, I have to get involved in this. And I thought around for two or three months trying to figure out how to do it. And finally I just took a flier and applied for a chapter and thought it would take a lot longer to be vetted and approved. But emails get across the Atlantic Ocean incredibly quickly and in three days I was approved for a chapter.

00:02:58:01 - 00:02:59:18
Gary Harty
So then the fundraising began.

00:03:00:14 - 00:03:27:21
John Simmerman
I'm going to pull over to pull up the main page here and reference. Yeah. So here is that TEDx talk that that only did that. And so it's wonderful to hear that, you know, the power of the Internet, the power of videos that we have out here that we're putting pushing content out, it does reach all parts of the world and inspires people to to to move forward and do things.

00:03:27:29 - 00:03:49:27
John Simmerman
So let's shift over and have you, you know, kind of share your story early and and how you came to, you know, really be inspired by this. And we'll get more into that deeply into the history. But why don't you just give a real quick introduction of yourself of where you're from, and maybe that very first kernel of inspiration.

00:03:51:19 - 00:04:16:23
Ole Kassow
Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you so much, Gary, for for the kind words. But but also, I'm I'm so inspired by what you've accomplished over the years. And and you know, the 40 odd years of of bicycle advocacy in the greater Denver area. And I think that was also part of the reason why you got approved in such a short space of time back in 2015.

00:04:17:01 - 00:04:43:01
Ole Kassow
So my own journey was cycling without age started back in 2012. I had been involved for a period of time in bicycle advocacy in Copenhagen as well. And of course Copenhagen is known as the city of cyclists, but even Copenhagen was not always Copenhagen. Copenhagen has a lot of shortcomings and a lot of things that need to be changed that a lot of people who are kind of pulling in different directions.

00:04:43:01 - 00:05:15:11
Ole Kassow
So I was involved in setting up something called the Bicycle Republic in Copenhagen, which was all about creating a lot better environments for cyclists and also to take Copenhagen to the next stage as well. And it was during that time that I also got inspired by the bicycle culture of of yesterday. So, you know, you go back to the 1920s and 1930s and there were probably two or three times more people cycling in Copenhagen than today.

00:05:15:11 - 00:05:36:27
Ole Kassow
And today it's the numbers are still quite high. But back then, you know, you could hardly move with a car through the city of Copenhagen because of all the cyclists. And it was just a wonderful sight to see the pictures and the video footage from back then. So I got the feeling that there were a lot of people who had been cycling a lot and weren't cycling anymore.

00:05:36:27 - 00:05:59:10
Ole Kassow
And I also noticed that there weren't a lot of elderly people and people with limited mobility in the cityscape. And and I started wondering why that was. And I also from my own childhood, had a dad who suffered from M.S. for many years and who was in a wheelchair. And I knew firsthand the challenges of of of having a lack of mobility.

00:05:59:26 - 00:06:25:05
Ole Kassow
So I got the idea that I wanted to see if I could get elderly people back on a bike. And I got particularly inspired by a gentleman that I kept meeting who was sitting on a bench in front of a nursing home next to where I lived. And and so one day I showed up with like one of these traditional cargo bikes from Copenhagen that had been modified to have a double seat in front.

00:06:25:22 - 00:06:50:15
Ole Kassow
And I rang the doorbell of the local nursing home and offered them the opportunity for some of the elders to get back outside, to feel the wind in their hair and and just to have a good time to be reconnected with their local community. And I was lucky enough that they said yes. And they offered me one of the residents and one of her friends to bring them outside.

00:06:51:00 - 00:07:21:13
Ole Kassow
And that moment, I guess, changed my life because that had a profound impact on on both people getting outside. The elderly people who are in there were in their late eighties. They just had such a great time. And they they chatted all over all the way. And one of them, Gertrude, she was actually had stopped talking. And so when I came back then, the the staff could hardly believe that she had been chatting nonstop for an hour and talking about her local community.

00:07:21:23 - 00:07:33:06
Ole Kassow
So that was a great inspiration and that made me realize there was something there was like a little gold nugget here that I had to keep searching for and had had to figure out How is that going to work?

00:07:33:06 - 00:08:09:28
John Simmerman
Yeah. Now, and speaking of how it's going to work, let's go right to a visual here, which I think will really drive it home for the audience as to what it is we're talking about and what this contraption kind of looks like that you're describing there is. Yeah, it it's wonderful. You get this side by side carriage opportunity here where the shore is set up so that, you know, you can throw a couple of people in front and be able to as is said, you know, on the website, you know, be able to get some wind in their hair and be able to feel the spirit.

00:08:09:28 - 00:08:45:23
John Simmerman
And in fact, if I go to your Web page here and and the dream that is is really encapsulated here, it really is kind of looking at this this opportunity to make a profound difference. And so, you know, it's it says literally on here that we dream of creating a world together in which the access to active citizenship creates happiness among our fellow elderly citizens by providing them with an opportunity to remain in active part of society, in local community.

00:08:46:08 - 00:09:23:12
John Simmerman
And what is interesting is that, especially in a an environment like Copenhagen and probably many cities around the Netherlands, where their mobility, their their ability to get around town and be able to meet their daily needs very may well have been on bikes. And so it's really it's it's if they get to that stage where they're no longer able to do that either through, you know, just through age or or as you mentioned, you know, a debilitating disease such as M.S. or anything else.

00:09:24:02 - 00:10:05:10
John Simmerman
This sort of this makes a huge difference for those individuals. But then as Gary can, you know, chime in and talk about, it also means a lot for, you know, elderly and other individuals here in North America and other cities where we're much more car centric. It has a massive impact as well. To talk a little bit about that, Gary, in terms of that impact, because when we look at that ability to really impact the lives of folks that maybe they weren't really cyclists, but at the same time, the smile on the face is really say it all in terms of, you know, what a profound impact this has.

00:10:06:25 - 00:10:45:17
Gary Harty
Yeah, this particular image is was taken at the first North American summit of cycling without age and Oshkosh, Wisconsin. And Oshkosh has the distinction of being the first chapter in the United States. And so all and some of the stars that came over from Copenhagen helped them set this up. And you're looking at three pilots and one one of the residents of Mirabito living and of course, she and I connected right away, were enjoying the National Football League playoffs right now.

00:10:45:25 - 00:11:05:01
Gary Harty
And she was a Green Bay Packers fan and I have to be a Green Bay Packers fan as a youngster. So, yeah, we had a lot to talk about. And yeah, at that point we're experiencing wind in our hair and before the right was over, we were also experiencing rain in our hair. So it was just a great adventure.

00:11:05:15 - 00:11:34:21
Gary Harty
If you could pull up, there's a picture of my family, looks like it's in the woods and my mom is sitting in a tree shop. This particular scene is almost out our back door. There's a very short green belt with a bikeway on it, and we moved into this townhome in 2014 and because of my mom was on oxygen, had neuropathy in her feet, that little trails completely inaccessible to her.

00:11:35:14 - 00:11:59:06
Gary Harty
And it being Thanksgiving, you know, we like to get out for a little bit of a walk rather than sit and watch football all day. And with the Trisha, my my mom's able to join in a family activity. So so that's my mom sitting in the Trisha I'm piloting to my left right side of the phone was my sister, her husband and their daughter.

00:12:00:09 - 00:12:34:26
Gary Harty
I have a cousin and her husband and my son is standing next to me and my daughter is standing next to the Trisha. And this is just this beautiful air. It's not very long, but like I say, you know, after a Thanksgiving meal or before a Thanksgiving meal, it's good to get out for a little active exercise. This was inaccessible to my mom, but for the Trisha and just just one of those special memories, my my mom's not with us anymore and always gone through a similar experience.

00:12:34:26 - 00:12:41:09
Gary Harty
And we treasure the times we could spend together and enjoy things like this.

00:12:42:08 - 00:13:14:06
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. So, Ali, when you look at what has transpired in in that period of time, so some from 2012 until now, I mean, it's been going on for about a decade now, but talk a little bit about what that was like and what that scope was like, you know, going from this girl in this kernel of an idea to now weather where you're you literally have, you know, what do you call them?

00:13:14:06 - 00:13:20:18
John Simmerman
What do you call these offshoots or these chapters or whatever they are all around the world. What's that been like?

00:13:22:10 - 00:13:56:18
Ole Kassow
Yeah, it's true that there are chapters and some people say, So are you a motorcycle club or what? Yeah, but we've got a you know, these are bikes, these are fine fighting bikes. And of course they're really good quality because they're carrying precious cargo. But yeah, it does. It did have quite a surprising growth over a short period of time and I was completely surprised as well because I didn't think this was going to work anywhere outside of Copenhagen.

00:13:56:20 - 00:14:23:10
Ole Kassow
But I've come to realize as well that the bicycle has something magic when when you are on a bike. And actually we do these amazing workshops sometimes with elderly people and we do it with people of all ages, but I take people through the time machine, so I invite them on a on a time journey. I ask people to close their eyes and I've done this with literally hundreds of groups of elders in their eighties and nineties and even over 100.

00:14:23:23 - 00:14:46:03
Ole Kassow
They all we do is we travel back to the day when they got their first bicycle and I asked them to go outside, get on their bikes, and now they're back when there are maybe three or four or five years old and they're riding their first bike in the night. You know, I ask them to topic to themselves a few years later when they're out finding out and riding the bike in a forest or the path of the neighborhood.

00:14:46:22 - 00:15:06:26
Ole Kassow
And then I ask them to just feel, you know, what is the feeling they have, what emotions are going through them, and trying to encapsulate that in one or two words and then we travel back to present day. And then I look at people with, you know, smiles on their faces and like they've gone through an amazing experience.

00:15:06:26 - 00:15:27:12
Ole Kassow
And then I ask people, So what is the first word that comes to mind? What was the word you were thinking about? And the first word that comes to people's minds in over 50% of the cases is the word freedom, and then followed by words like joy and excitement and so on. So the word freedom is associated with the bicycle.

00:15:27:23 - 00:15:58:27
Ole Kassow
It's a freedom tool. It allows us to roam, and it's actually the first tool that we all have to escape our own home. You know, when we were kids, the bike was how we got outside and escape from, you know, our parents. And that still sits in us every single one of us. And I've even sometimes I've, I've spoken to elders who've never owned a bike and even people who haven't actually been on a bike before, they still associate the bike with freedom.

00:15:59:13 - 00:16:31:09
Ole Kassow
So I think that's that's an amazing thing. And I think that's the reason why, as you know, you see on the map here that it appeals to people all over the world, even if they come from a from a city that may not boast great cycling infrastructure. I mean, we have chapters in cities like Los Angeles and New York and Singapore, places where it's either too hot or too cold or too windy or not enough bike lanes and too many cars.

00:16:31:09 - 00:16:53:27
Ole Kassow
And people still love these bike rides. And I think it is associated with the, you know, just the emotions that come up and the fact that we just it stimulates our senses. We have all these amazing studies as well that if you stimulate the senses, the sense of smell and you you know, you feel the went through your hair, all of that makes you happy.

00:16:53:27 - 00:17:09:04
Ole Kassow
And that happiness can last for several days. So elders go back to the nursing home and people who work in the nursing home will report back that that sensation is carrying through to all the other residents. So it actually has all these positive repercussions.

00:17:09:28 - 00:17:20:22
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And I noticed, too, you mentioned specifically the nursing home and talk a little bit about the name, the origin of the name Cycling without age.

00:17:21:20 - 00:17:45:11
Ole Kassow
Yeah, it's a funny story because it was one of the first chapters outside of Copenhagen that got started in the northern part of Jutland in Denmark, and I was in very close contact with the woman who was setting up the chapter up in the town of Young. And and she was a nurse and we were in maybe on we were talking on the phone several times a day.

00:17:45:21 - 00:18:08:25
Ole Kassow
I helped her procure the trash bikes and we got the whole thing set up. And then it was all running and I didn't get that many phone calls anymore. And then one day she calls me and this is like in the very, very early days, and she says, You won't believe what happened today. So we had this woman as a passenger in her early nineties and she was partially sighted, so she was nearly blind.

00:18:10:07 - 00:18:36:13
Ole Kassow
And then there were a bunch of young people out to be trained as volunteer pilots. We called the volunteers pilots and one of them was really curious. And she said to this lady, So what do you get out of being out in nature and out in the forest when you can't see anything? And she said, Well, young man, you know, I can I can still smell the flowers and I can I can hear the birds and I can feel the wind in my hair.

00:18:37:05 - 00:19:03:15
Ole Kassow
And so the the the nurse was running the chapter. She, she she wrote back to me with an email and she won't believe this. And she said and then she explained that story. And I got so inspired by that. I've never met that woman, but I've seen pictures of her. And we decided that that encapsulated what we were all about because it's something that, of course we all know it and if we start noticing it, we feel the wind.

00:19:03:15 - 00:19:23:25
Ole Kassow
And I but it's nothing that we think about on a daily basis. But once you don't have it. So if you're an elderly person and you've lost your mobility and you finally get back outside again, you start to notice all these different things that we all take for granted. And one of the mayors feeling this sensation of the wind, feeling the breeze.

00:19:24:09 - 00:19:26:11
Ole Kassow
And that is just absolutely amazing.

00:19:26:27 - 00:19:58:05
John Simmerman
Yeah. And Gary, you and I were seeing pictures in the Times is worth a thousand words. So here's a picture. You can actually see the wind in her hair. That sense and that smile that that that enthusiasm that comes with that. Gary, talk a little bit about what this program has meant for you personally and your wife. You know, to be able to to to be pilots and to to be the ringleaders bringing this to your community.

00:19:59:14 - 00:20:24:08
Gary Harty
Well, the two women you see in that photo, the woman closest says Judy's mom, my mom and mother in law and the other is, of course, my mom. And they were our guinea pigs. Judy and I had to train on a tri before we could train other pilots. And so they were the guinea pigs. And getting back to what all they said, you know, I asked Myrna, my mother in law, I said, So Myrna, once last time you were on a bike.

00:20:24:08 - 00:20:50:01
Gary Harty
And she says, It's been a while. And then she went on to relate. She grew up in Golden, which is a small community west of Denver. And she says, I used to ride my bike a lot. So we're talking about 1930s. She would have had one of these balloon tire women's bicycles. And she says one day she started writing up Look up Mountain, a hit on a bike that probably weighs £50.

00:20:50:21 - 00:21:16:17
Gary Harty
And she got she got pretty high on the mountain and she thought about time to get back down. And and then another time, she says in you'd have to know Denver a little bit. But she took last a following Clear Creek and into Denver and wound up at Ilitch Gardens, which is northwest Denver. And, you know, that's a good 10 to 15 miles from Golden.

00:21:16:17 - 00:21:38:19
Gary Harty
And this is a young girl. You talk about freedom and she's thought, you know, it might be time for me to head back to Golden. So these are the memories that she shared. And and the Trisha was the vehicle through which she was able to share some of these memories. Very fond memories that she has. And again, it gets back to the idea of freedom.

00:21:39:11 - 00:22:07:10
Gary Harty
We've had some amazing experiences with the residents getting back to feedback. So Sarah Schroeder is the wellness director at Eaton, where we operate. And there's a photo of oops, there's a photo of all in for Trisha. I was out in front of Eaton and we're all waving at the camera. Sarah is one of them. And I approached Eaton because they're a nonprofit home for seniors.

00:22:07:21 - 00:22:27:03
Gary Harty
So Sarah and I had a meeting and she said, I'll take this, the leadership. And I think we we've got to go to be the first cycling without age program here in Colorado. And so we've been doing it while sharing some great stories. And one day Sarah says to me, she says, Gary, you have no idea what this program means to our community.

00:22:27:10 - 00:22:55:20
Gary Harty
And I said, Sure, I do. People are smiling and they thank me for the rides. And she said, No, you don't get it. I work here 8 hours a day, and I'm telling you, these rides are transformative. And she says, We've had people with dementia who are starting to open up. We've got people who didn't talk or were suffering from paranoia start to open up and people start sharing these stories.

00:22:55:20 - 00:23:05:08
Gary Harty
So I thought I had an understanding. But when a professional tells me that it has that big of an impact, then you know, you're you're doing something good.

00:23:06:03 - 00:23:53:27
John Simmerman
Yeah. It's not to say a smile, isn't it? Isn't amazing. It is amazing. But yeah, when it's more than just a smile, when it has that really, truly meaningful impact on, on well-being. And yeah, I mean it's, it's, it almost it gives me, you know, goosebumps just to be thinking about this. And it also kind of occurs to me, too, that it also provides a level of empowerment and and a release for, you know, people who maybe it is an age, maybe it is, as you mentioned, or maybe it is something like a debilitating early onset disease, or maybe it could even be a child who has, you know, something like cerebral palsy or something

00:23:53:27 - 00:24:08:00
John Simmerman
like that where they're just not able to do the same level and be able to experience it. So I would imagine you have a similar type of profound impact, you know, for for those individuals.

00:24:08:00 - 00:24:46:18
Ole Kassow
Yeah, we have I mean, we're all cycling without age, but it doesn't mean that it's only about providing these transformative rides to people of age. It also means that we can do it. It's really it's become a metaphor as well. But it means we want to provide these opportunities for everybody who, regardless of age, regardless of ability. And and so we do have a lot of chapters around the world who are actually mainly focusing on people of all ages with some sort of physical disability that won't allow them to ride a bike on their own.

00:24:46:18 - 00:25:12:29
Ole Kassow
And I think also what it does is it does provide a sense of community and a sense of belonging. I think we all want to belong. And and probably one of the the biggest issues and the biggest problems that we have in this world today is the fact that there are so many people who feel socially isolated, whether they're in a care home, whether they're in their own homes, and it's people of all ages.

00:25:12:29 - 00:25:38:07
Ole Kassow
And what we've come to realize with this program is that it's both our passengers and our pilots that gain from this sense of community, the sense of belonging. So when we're out riding, it has been described as a magic bubble that almost occurs when you're out on this bike. So you are usually one volunteer pilot and then two passengers.

00:25:38:28 - 00:26:03:14
Ole Kassow
And then suddenly this magic bubble appears and you can talk about anything and you can remember anything. And even if, like I sometimes ride with elders who may have memory issues. So, you know, one day they can remember a lot of things and the next day they can't remember a lot. And then so rather than trying to focus on that, we just work with imagination.

00:26:03:14 - 00:26:29:21
Ole Kassow
And sometimes I may put myself in a situation where we're going down memory lane and I may be a completely different person with one or two passengers and we're maybe going down one of the busy streets of Copenhagen in the 1960s and having a ball. So I think it's about trying to sort of work on on people's imagination as well and getting them to feel that they belong, that they're part of something bigger than themselves.

00:26:30:04 - 00:27:02:12
Ole Kassow
And so by doing so, I've actually come to realize that we can offer something remarkable to volunteers as well. I have so many people of all ages, like we welcome students, we have a large student community among volunteers in many cities around the world, and we also have a lot of people who themselves have reached the age of of their retirement and feel that this provides them with an opportunity to still be able to give back to society and certainly to myself.

00:27:02:12 - 00:27:31:03
Ole Kassow
And that's also, I guess, one of the reasons why one of our guiding principles is kindness, the feeling of being able to give something back to someone else and giving back to society is probably one of the greatest feelings that certainly I know. And I can see it in the eyes and the just the, you know, the body language of volunteers who come for the first time and seeing the pride of mounting that bike and being able to take someone out for a bike ride, that is a truly remarkable feeling.

00:27:31:21 - 00:27:37:09
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. So Gary, you sent this photo along which made me smile. Okay, what the heck is going on here?

00:27:38:28 - 00:28:13:04
Gary Harty
So the first pilot to join Judy and I is the wife of the gentleman you see piloting that Trisha and and Wendy, Bristol's been with me for five and a half years. This is her husband, Randy Bristol, and he works with a program in Denver, trips for kids, and he's been named place Volunteer of the Year, taking kids with who are perhaps underserved kids of color and introducing them to mountain bike riding.

00:28:13:04 - 00:28:28:04
Gary Harty
Well, and this is their oldest daughter. And they thought, you know, the only way to get her to the wedding, since we're an active family, is in the Trisha. So that's the father, the bride. And they're on the way to a wedding in one of our Trisha. So I love.

00:28:28:04 - 00:28:42:17
John Simmerman
It. I love it. It's not really not it's not really true. It's not the only way to get to the wedding, but it's really the best style. She could have written her bike, of course, as they probably do in Copenhagen.

00:28:44:11 - 00:28:46:01
Gary Harty
We have. Yeah, they.

00:28:46:01 - 00:28:46:10
Ole Kassow
Do.

00:28:46:10 - 00:28:47:02
Gary Harty
They do for.

00:28:47:02 - 00:29:11:03
John Simmerman
Sure. So only the thought occurs to me that, you know, people who are tuning in to this, who maybe they already know about cycling without a major and this is sort of a a gentle reminder or maybe they're they're learning about this for the very first time. I know that our on the Web site, we've got, you know, a page here of what it means or what the steps are.

00:29:11:09 - 00:29:39:01
John Simmerman
But sort of just walk us through this process of what it takes to become an affiliate and create a chapter. And and really, you know, how difficult is it? I mean, obviously, it was a little easier for for for Gary, given the amount of of history that he had from an advocacy perspective. But if somebody is just learning about this, you know, how is it how easy is it and what is it you're looking for?

00:29:39:05 - 00:29:44:09
John Simmerman
I think you mentioned a couple of little nuggets there as to what you're looking for. But walk us through that process.

00:29:46:00 - 00:30:11:14
Ole Kassow
Yes. So we call people who want to start a chapter. We call them affiliates. So as you can see on the screen here, we have the affiliate agreement, which is kind of a social contract. And what we're looking for, we're looking for people who have a desire to make a difference. And we don't they don't necessarily need to be bicycle advocates.

00:30:11:14 - 00:30:28:27
Ole Kassow
I mean, that certainly helps. But we have people who have a desire to make a difference in a lot of different areas. So it could be people who have been working with people with disabilities, or it could be people who have maybe they're working in a in a care home. It could even be someone who actually represents the care home.

00:30:29:11 - 00:30:54:15
Ole Kassow
But usually it's it's someone who has the desire to put one or two or three or four of these tricycles into the local community because they can see that they can transform that local community the way that Gary described in Lakewood as well. And then what we do is once we see the application of someone who wants to become an affiliate, we read through it.

00:30:55:06 - 00:31:29:17
Ole Kassow
We usually take a call with them and we try understand why. Why have they come to us? How have they found us? Do they have a good network? But so and above all, we want people to form a small group of like minded people with different capabilities, different competencies, so that they can share in their successes, but they can also help each other when the going gets tough sometimes because, of course, part of setting up a chapter is that you got to fundraise for a tradeshow, and a trial is not cheap.

00:31:29:19 - 00:32:02:00
Ole Kassow
It's it's a it's a fairly expensive piece of equipment. So with, you know, shipment and everything, it costs over 10,000 USD. So it's it's fairly expensive, but like we talked about earlier on, it's it's also it's carrying precious cargo. So we want to make sure that these bikes are really, really good quality. So once a group is set up and you started the fundraising, you've started reaching out to build relationships with the local community, like in Lakewood, it was about finding a good nursing home.

00:32:02:08 - 00:32:30:14
Ole Kassow
In some cases, it's also about setting up maybe a relationship with a local university to get volunteers. The local businesses for for for funding for the bikes. We find very often that it's very easy to walk down to the local, maybe to the local high street and speak to the local shop owners and get them to get on board, get maybe the local cafe to sponsor free coffee when you're out cycling, things like that.

00:32:30:14 - 00:32:56:16
Ole Kassow
And then you sort of start to build momentum. And the average time it takes from someone has discovered cycling without age until they have an active tricycle in the local community is probably about three months. And we do our utmost, of course, to to help and to to cheer on that team. And we we all have we've built like a global community.

00:32:56:16 - 00:33:19:24
Ole Kassow
So so existing chapters help new chapters get started and give them experience. So we also have this online community where people help each other in many, many different ways. Finding insurance and ideas for fundraising and ideas for attracting volunteers and retaining them and so on as well. So that's that's kind of the infrastructure that we've built.

00:33:21:08 - 00:33:44:14
John Simmerman
Yeah, fantastic. And Gary, from from the standpoint of where you're at and what you're trying to do in Lakewood, and I know that this is not a photo of Lakewood, but what what's that like? I mean, what's the nitty gritty of trying to keep this rolling and keep the momentum rolling along and being successful?

00:33:45:28 - 00:34:11:17
Gary Harty
Yeah, I do want to address this photo for a moment. This was the second North American Summit conference for cycling without age. And in this photo you're seeing well, this is in Canmore, Canada, which is absolutely gorgeous. And what you're looking at is a community of people. There's people from California in this photo, Colorado, both Alberta and British Columbia, Colorado and Copenhagen.

00:34:12:02 - 00:34:41:29
Gary Harty
And I know, John, you can relate to this because you're part of a community of healthy living and sustainable transportation. And by joining this community, I now have associates in other countries, you know, people that I call friends to share the experience with. Getting back to Lakewood, one of my good friends who was a top level racer, you know, I literally forced her to sit down in a chair.

00:34:42:06 - 00:35:07:21
Gary Harty
You know, she she was a manager for visiting Angels, doing a lot of health homecare for for seniors. And I said, you're going to watch this video, sit down, turn the phone off and watch. And she became one of my pilots. And then she started the chapter in Littleton. And Littleton is just going gangbusters. They will soon have five tri shores.

00:35:08:09 - 00:35:38:07
Gary Harty
They've got 40 to 50 volunteers working. I trained at Whitman, who started out chapter in Boulder, and he's been very active in reaching out to other communities that are interested. So he will soon have either directly or indirectly, a tri shores operating in Colorado, including one up in Cheyenne, Wyoming. And so when I started, I was the only active chapter.

00:35:38:07 - 00:36:08:25
Gary Harty
There were, I think, six chapters who had not succeeded in fundraising or whatever. We will have, five active chapters that I know of, six active chapters, and somewhere between 15 and 20. Trisha is operating in Colorado, so we're not on a par with Wisconsin yet, but I think we're we're starting to make an impact. And like all he says, we help each other.

00:36:09:05 - 00:36:25:24
Gary Harty
You know, each of us were volunteers. This is strictly volunteer driven, but each of us brings different skill sets to the table. I brought a bullheaded stubbornness that said, Nobody's going to stop me from doing this. Barb is marketing.

00:36:26:02 - 00:36:30:05
John Simmerman
It. It happened easily, relatively.

00:36:30:05 - 00:36:37:06
Gary Harty
So yeah, I don't know that it was easy raising that first $10,000 cost free some sleepless nights.

00:36:38:03 - 00:36:46:09
John Simmerman
So, I mean, let's let's get down to brass taxes here. I mean, what's what's the hardest thing to keep this momentum going?

00:36:47:17 - 00:37:13:07
Gary Harty
Well, I think fundraising to get it started, I was able to get Eaton on board fairly easily because, number one, they're a nonprofit. They don't have to satisfy a board of directors with bottom line thinking, and they're willing to experiment. I know Barb's case in Littleton, she was working with a lot of for profit home centers, and it she beat the bushes for like a year.

00:37:13:19 - 00:37:33:20
Gary Harty
You know, she'd work with the CEO and for six months and then next thing you know, are CEO's either been transferred to another organization or has been fired, and you start the process all over again. So so you need a place that's willing to work with you. You need to do some fundraising, and then you need to hang on to the volunteers.

00:37:33:24 - 00:37:59:21
Gary Harty
I've trained somewhere between 40 and 50 pilots and have lost most of them. On the good side, they've gone out and started their own chapters. So in that way it's helped us grow. But life intervenes. You know, one of my good pilots is said, You know, Gary, I'm leaving. We're going to Minneapolis, Saint Paul, because we just had a granddaughter and we're going to be involved.

00:38:00:03 - 00:38:00:11
John Simmerman
Yeah.

00:38:00:25 - 00:38:02:09
Gary Harty
She's like, That gets.

00:38:02:09 - 00:38:26:29
John Simmerman
In the way. And yeah, spend time with the grandkids is key. Oh, why don't you sort of amplify what are some of the biggest challenges that affiliates have when they want to start a chapter? And you know something other than what if there's anything other than what Gary just mentioned in and how can they overcome those challenges?

00:38:26:29 - 00:38:51:29
Ole Kassow
Yeah, I fully support all the statements that you just made, Gary. I think these are some of the major challenges. Of course, the the fundraising we do have, we have actually found a way of tapping into a lot of grants that exist in all states in the US. And we basically work with them in I think it's something called the CMT Grant, the Reinvestment program, and it's available in all states.

00:38:52:23 - 00:39:20:15
Ole Kassow
We have it, I think now in five or six different states. So so we're beginning to address that. But but other than that, I think keeping the level of activity high and retaining volunteers can sometimes be a challenge. And I've been working with volunteers in many different other sectors, and I know that it's it's it's nothing special to cycling without age because, of course, it's the nature of volunteering is that you don't get paid for it.

00:39:20:15 - 00:39:38:20
Ole Kassow
So you usually have a full time job. So you have other priorities as well. Life gets in the way and so on. And I don't take that as a defeat that people don't stay for a very, very long time. So if you if you take a group of 100 volunteer pilots, maybe ten of them will stay for a long time.

00:39:39:15 - 00:40:03:23
Ole Kassow
Ten will only have one ride. And then you have a section, people who may only ride occasionally, and then they'll maybe stop after a period of time because they move away or whatever it might be. And then you have people who ride fairly regularly as well. And so what I'm really curious about is what is it that makes the experience of being a pilot appealing in the long term as well?

00:40:03:23 - 00:40:39:22
Ole Kassow
And what I've found is that if we create a a sense of community, it means a lot. So people actually know each other because we have seen chapters as well where people go out riding on their own and they don't really meet other volunteers. So doing community right where you have several bikes out, we actually have had a bunch of American students volunteering in Copenhagen and this past semester we have an English language university in Copenhagen and there are about 1300 students from the US.

00:40:40:09 - 00:40:59:26
Ole Kassow
And so we recruit. We are part of the activity fan We're actually going to go there next week and see we can recruit for the next semester as well. But what we found was that what really engages those young people to, to to write a law and to ride regularly is that we actually have two volunteers per bike.

00:41:00:07 - 00:41:21:15
Ole Kassow
So we have one volunteer riding bike and one being a co passenger together with one of the residents from the nursing home. And then very often they go out to bikes. So that means they'll actually there'll be four students having that shared experience, which they can talk about afterwards. And they can they can they can share in the memories of that ride.

00:41:21:15 - 00:41:52:13
Ole Kassow
So they started doing all sorts of experiments, like they go out to museums, they go out to cafes, they really get to know these people and, and this group that that we're volunteers. And this past semester they created a small four minute video where they all gave their testimony of their experiences of of being pilots in taking that age and how they made friends with with these residents who were maybe four times their own age.

00:41:53:01 - 00:42:19:25
Ole Kassow
And and so I really got to realize that what gets people going and what retains this sense of community is that you get people together and you get people to share the experiences. So that's what we're focusing on a lot. There are some beautiful chapters in Germany, for instance, who also have a pilot night every single week. So people show up at the local pub and they they don't ride, but they get to know each other.

00:42:19:25 - 00:42:31:11
Ole Kassow
They share stories and they have a good time. So it becomes like, you know, it's a you know, you feel like you're part of a community, right? So that makes a that's that makes a huge difference Yeah.

00:42:31:20 - 00:43:19:07
John Simmerman
Yeah, it's great. So I want to pull up this this photo here just as a, as a platform for talking about something slightly different. And that is both of you sort of have this history of bicycle advocacy and in trying to work towards getting more people riding cycling more often and in and that is you know do we think that we have do we have any any any empirical evidence that the cycling without age affiliates in cycling, without each chapter's are helping to move the needle forward, move the progress forward towards creating safer all ages and abilities facilities for people to ride.

00:43:19:07 - 00:43:31:05
Gary Harty
Right. I'm going to let Oli address that because I know that there's some research that's going on to our our hub. Certainly we've got some empirical evidence and only why don't you chime in and then I'm going to add to it.

00:43:31:27 - 00:44:01:04
Ole Kassow
Yeah, well, first let me give you some little anecdotal evidence, because I was in Los Angeles some years ago helping to set up a local chapter in the San Gabriel area. And they had fundraised for a couple of trials and they'd set up this this kick off event. And there was one of the the local politicians from that area who came down to cut the ribbon and to be there to show his support.

00:44:01:08 - 00:44:27:20
Ole Kassow
And I think maybe even the local municipality had helped fundraise for the bikes. And then before we were cutting the ribbon and all the official stuff was going on, I was standing there chatting to him and he said to me, I'm actually I'm not actually a cyclist. And I don't really know why we should be investing all that money in cycling infrastructure because I think, you know, the local community works beautifully without that.

00:44:27:20 - 00:44:46:29
Ole Kassow
So anyway, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you can make a difference to our elders. And then, you know, we had some he did a talk and I did a talk. And then I said to him, I'd like to invite you out for a ride in one of our tricycles. And he said, Yeah, I'd love to. And I said, Because you can probably show me around.

00:44:47:17 - 00:45:08:21
Ole Kassow
So I invite him along. He got on to the tri shore and we started cycling around. I said, You show me where to go. And so we took a left turn and we took a right turn. He knew exactly where we were going to go, and he said, you know, but don't take the next one last because that's a really busy intersection and we can't go in that direction.

00:45:09:07 - 00:45:46:06
Ole Kassow
But we managed to get a really nice ride around. There were some beautiful, small, quiet streets in the neighborhood and we came back after maybe 15, 20 minutes and he said to me, kept he kept it was in his seat. And he turned around and looked at me and he said, Now I know what you're talking about, because I now I can see from this seat of this tricycle, I can see how unsuitable our environment is for for safe cycling and I can also see how important it is that people cycle, because suddenly you get to experience your city in a completely new way.

00:45:46:16 - 00:46:07:18
Ole Kassow
Suddenly you're not you're not sitting inside like a sardine box. You are actually out there interacting with people. And we actually stopped a couple of times to greet people that he knew. And of course, had you been in a car, you would have never been able to just stop and have that conversation. So so he said, now, now I understand.

00:46:07:28 - 00:46:24:16
Ole Kassow
And and so it came to me thinking that that Trisha was almost like a Trojan horse of, of, of cycling because that that made him open his eyes and open his wallet to making physical changes in the local environment.

00:46:25:06 - 00:46:26:27
John Simmerman
Yeah. Gary, go ahead.

00:46:27:19 - 00:47:16:14
Gary Harty
Yeah. There is a photo from the Oshkosh WIS conference and you'll see four four women standing around a table. And there's there's a slide up on the projector. This, this was at Oshkosh. And one of the most profound things that was said was by the president of Maravilla Living, Theresa Bertram. And, you know, I wrote this down. She'd been involved in elderly care and has explored elderly care all around the world and talks about the strengths and weaknesses of different models and the quote that I wrote down and it's on that slide, is the number one predictor of health and happiness for the elderly is the quantity and quality of their relationships.

00:47:17:10 - 00:47:49:15
Gary Harty
And and that's one of the reasons such a big supporter of cycling without age, is it is an opportunity to build these relationships and and these relationships. Yeah that that's the photo the woman with the blond hair kind left center she's the president. And next to her is the vice president and put together a wonderful conference. You know which is building up the community of pilots.

00:47:49:25 - 00:48:15:28
Gary Harty
But but that's the quote. And and to take that one step further, I was interviewed by a local television station, and it's a short, short little piece. But, you know, they cut a 15 minute interview turns a 32nd soundbite. But the one soundbite is quoted as saying, who gets more out of this? The pilot or the passenger? And then I shrugged.

00:48:15:28 - 00:48:42:19
Gary Harty
I said, it's a toss up. And, you know, one of our first rides, I was with a gentleman from Eton, and he and a companion are in the Trisha. And I. I say to him, Oh, he said, I've just given up my pilot's license. Doctor says I shouldn't be flying anymore. And I said, Oh, what were you in the military or the airlines?

00:48:42:19 - 00:49:04:12
Gary Harty
He said, No, no, no, no. I just flew for my business. And I said, Well, what business are you in? He says, Well, does the address of 6800 West mean anything to you? And I go, Well, yeah, yeah, I grew up around here. Well, I was the founder and operator of the roller city rink here for 37 years.

00:49:04:21 - 00:49:35:29
Gary Harty
Turns out he probably taught me how to roller skate when I was eight years old. And. And when we introduced roller skating to our kids, he was still operating that in that. That is really profound to interact with somebody at that level. You know, to come full circle, you know, not somebody I knew when I was eight, but to realize the impact they had on me when I was eight years old and then be able to take them out for a ride is it's a remarkable experience.

00:49:36:24 - 00:49:48:27
Gary Harty
Yeah. And I've had that on more than one occasion. You start a conversation and you're going to teach them something about something and that, and then they start teaching you because maybe they used to work there.

00:49:49:09 - 00:49:49:13
John Simmerman
Right?

00:49:49:17 - 00:49:52:14
Gary Harty
Or it's just.

00:49:52:14 - 00:49:52:22
John Simmerman
Yeah.

00:49:53:05 - 00:49:58:29
Gary Harty
So that that's the other side of it is I think the pilots that stay get so much out of it.

00:49:59:25 - 00:50:12:20
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'll a final word for you. Well any, any final thoughts, anything that we haven't covered yet that you think the audience really needs to hear about this program.

00:50:13:29 - 00:50:45:12
Ole Kassow
Well, I think I said at the end of my TED talk, I said, it's all about relationships. And I. I cannot repeat that enough. So I of course, the gentleman on the bench back in 2012, his name was Tocqueville, and he became a really, really good friend of mine. He died at the age of nearly 101 five years after we got to know each other, an absolutely wonderful person who also had so much wisdom in him.

00:50:45:12 - 00:51:09:20
Ole Kassow
And I think what I have come to understand, I mean, these conversations we have the storytelling back and forth where I tell him about present day situations and issues and he can tell me, you can give me their historical perspective and he can give me wisdom of of yesterday. And he gave me so many wonderful little stories and things that I have been able to bring with me.

00:51:10:03 - 00:51:28:19
Ole Kassow
And and of course, it's the nature of cycling that is that you are you're dealing with people of age and so you are bound to lose friends along the way. But also it makes you cherish life and your relationships as you go along because you are going to build a lot of them in cycling. Blood age.

00:51:29:22 - 00:51:34:05
John Simmerman
I love it. Gary, final thoughts, final nuggets of wisdom from you?

00:51:35:15 - 00:52:12:20
Gary Harty
Well, you know, is as much as the organization has grown internationally, it's hard to meet all of the needs. If we have 20 tri shores operating, we could easily put 40 to work. And I think it gets back to sustainable transportation. The fact that we are so car dependent really feeds into the social isolation. And I think of your friends, Chris and Melissa brought a lot living in Delft and they're curbing traffic in one of their first group of neighbors.

00:52:12:20 - 00:52:41:19
Gary Harty
For four gentlemen, you're all brothers, grew up in the area, one of whom is suffering from dementia. And at the time they wrote the book, the other brothers could check in with him occasionally, but he could still navigate the neighborhood, get, you know, get to the store and take care of his basic needs. And even though there were memory issues and things like that, just living in a community where you're not 100% car dependent, it really helps to eliminate that social isolation.

00:52:42:04 - 00:53:01:27
Gary Harty
And since we don't have that sense, we do have too much car independent car dependency. It's great that we can get people involved in the community and get them out and about and establish these relationships. It's kind of the antidote to car dependency and I'll just leave it there.

00:53:02:27 - 00:53:11:22
John Simmerman
And a great place to leave it. Gary, and it has been such a pleasure and honor having you on the Active Towns podcast. Thank you so very much.

00:53:12:23 - 00:53:13:13
Ole Kassow
Thank you so much.

00:53:13:15 - 00:53:19:01
Gary Harty
I thank you and always good to see you again, as always. Good to see you, Gary.

00:53:19:12 - 00:53:37:18
John Simmerman
Hey, thank you also very much. I hope you enjoyed this episode. On Cycling without Age with Gary in L.A. and featured. Please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. Yes, especially share it with a friend. This is definitely an initiative that needs to continue spreading around the world, even more so than it already has.

00:53:37:26 - 00:54:01:14
John Simmerman
And if you haven't already done so, I'd be honored to have you subscribe to the channel that subscription down below and ring the notifications bell and select your notification preferences. So if you want all notifications and be sure to actually highlight all and then we get them all again. Thank you so very much for tuning in. I will be back next week with another episode on the Active Towns podcast.

00:54:01:20 - 00:54:27:16
John Simmerman
On the active towns Channel. And until then, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers and again sending a huge thank you to all my active towns Ambassadors supporting the channel on Patron buy me a coffee YouTube super Thanks. As well as making contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the active towns store, every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated.

00:54:27:26 - 00:54:37:03
John Simmerman
Thank you all so much.