Copenhagener Ole Kassow launched a program to bring older Danes on bicycle outings. Now volunteer pilots in 29 countries are taking their passengers on the road.
It all started with a friendly wave. In 2012, Copenhagen native Ole Kassow’s daily cycling commute took him past a nursing home. Every morning, the management consultant would see impeccably dressed 97-year-old Thorkild, who’d greet him from a spot on a bench, a walker by his side. Kassow wondered about the last time the man — and the home’s other residents — had been on a bike. “Because most Copenhageners love cycling, I assumed he’d love to go back out in his community, to interact with his neighbors, and do something he’d probably always done in his life,” he says. He received permission from home staff to take a senior for a ride in a rental trishaw — a cargo tricycle with a low passenger compartment that goes in front of the cyclist. This ride eventually led Kassow to create the nonprofit Cycling Without Age, an initiative that now includes more than 250 chapters in 29 countries.
Beth McKechnie | Workplace Commuter Options
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