We all have the right to feel the wind on our face

Ole Kassow is a Danish citizen who, every day, on his bike ride to work, would pass by a nursing home, seeing them sitting there letting time pass. One day he wondered, "what will happen to me tomorrow when I'm old, with how much I enjoy cycling?". Taking into account the mobility difficulties of many elderly people, he had the brilliant idea of using a tricycle, with which he could take those elderly people for a ride. This is how Cycling Without Age was born in Denmark in 2012. María Elisa Acosta Ojeda and Guadalupe Fernández Maza have been at the helm of En Bici Sense Edat since 2016. They founded this movement in Barcelona that continues to gain followers throughout Catalonia. Now, in addition, they have just received an award in the Social Innovation category for this project.

This non-profit association works to improve the quality of life, health, and well-being of older people. Its objective is to promote active aging and good treatment of this group under the idea of facilitating the creation of new intergenerational relationships that fight against unwanted loneliness. The passenger is the one who chooses the route they will take, within the framework of a ride in which both participants ---rider and passenger--- share, relate, and connect. Here there are no caregivers, here there are companions. And what is generated is something greater: sharing the feeling of freedom.

This activity is possible thanks to the use of specially adapted electric tricycles driven by volunteer people who, previously, receive theoretical and practical training, both to learn and take into account the special needs of the group, and to know how to handle the tricycle. An important point to highlight is that, thanks to these electric motors, anyone over 18 years old can be a volunteer, as it is more necessary to have certain agility in driving than strength.

Here there are no caregivers, here there are companions. And what is generated is something greater: sharing the feeling of freedom

In Barcelona there are 8 tricycles that rotate through different residences and entities that promote projects with older people. The rides last approximately two hours, and are carried out every day of the week. In this way, they arecreating links between volunteers and users, who pay nothing, and stories are collected not only from a life, but also historical memory of the city and the changes it has suffered through the years. One learns to look with different eyes after knowing that, in that doorway on that street, someone had their first kiss 50 years ago.

With that principle of collecting stories so they are not lost, new volunteer initiatives are working, such as Tercera, an idea born from a final project work, which aims to be a publication that compiles these stories along with images captured by cameras offered to the riders; or Fem Memòria, an audiovisual project in a feminine key that tells us the story of elderly women in the city.

Since its foundation in 2016, they have ridden with 3,500 people and have more than 100 volunteers in their ranks, in addition to having the support of the Barcelona City Council and about 50 entities and facilities, not only in the city, but also in Sant Just Desvern and Terrassa. Their success became evident during the first charity race they organized, called La Gran Pedalada, with the motto Let's move forward together against unwanted loneliness, where everyone could add kilometers, through a mobile application, by doing whatever activity they were doing. The total number of participants was 470, also from other parts of the world, and 7770 kilometers were added against loneliness.

They ride for almost 9 months a year, including December, which is one of the months with the highest demand, since, as they tell us, there are people who have not been to Plaza Catalunya and seen the Christmas lights for more than fifteen years. In 2020, they condensed all their activity into three months, riding with 700 people, following all safety protocols and reducing to a single passenger per trip. But the post-confinement need to go out has been so great for this group ---let's remember it is the most affected by the pandemic--- that the emotional and health retribution has been greatly noticed.

In their first charity race, called La Gran Pedalada, with the motto Let's move forward together against unwanted loneliness, they added 7770 kilometers against loneliness

They have stories that are especially moving. They tell me about a user who does not communicate with speech because she suffers from an advanced degree of dementia. After the confinement, the center's psychologist told her "we are going to go to the bikes today," and suddenly, they saw how she mobilized her whole body and filled with joy at being able to go for a ride again.She got off the tricycle full of joy wanting to hug everyone. Or that of a volunteer who discovered that he walks with the first person who held him in his arms. Or that of a father and son who walk together listening to opera at full blast from awalkman.

During 2021, they have proposed consolidating the program in the current health context and being able to reach a new type of beneficiaries: people with disabilities or functional diversity. And to be able to join them individually, not only can we become volunteers, but, in addition to becoming members for a modest annual price, one can make one-time donations. And if we have a company, we can sponsor or participate by doing corporate volunteering.

If there is one thing this movement achieves, it is to help alleviate the isolation and loneliness of many elderly people, return joy and well-being to them, with a walk and a phrase: "tell me things, I'm listening." To give them back a little bit of freedom, because we all have the right to feel the wind on our face.