Roll with it: Volunteers are taking Hamilton seniors on trishaw rides along the waterfront

On their rides together, Jan Finch and Allan Feldman talk about everything, from the greenery, to Hamilton's changing landscape, to whether the geese and swans have been mating with each other.

This afternoon, Feldman pedals a slow pace — no faster than 10 kilometres per hour — on an electric trishaw, as Finch sits buckled in on the front, and he takes her along a waterfront trail.

This has only happened a couple of times, Finch says, but if she has a say in it, it'll happen more often under the new Hamilton-Burlington Cycling Without Age program. A local version of a Danish initiative, the program sees volunteer drivers pilots pedal seniors who can't otherwise bike along Hamilton's waterfront. Pilots like Feldman are volunteers, and for riders like Finch, it's free.

"It's totally, absolutely awesome," Finch, 70, said at the official launch of the program at Bennetto Community Centre. "It's so beautiful to see it all down there, and you're riding around and not working at anything."

There's "brilliant conversation all around," she said, of what happens on the rides. "I informed him that many years ago, someone told me that the swans and the geese in the harbour are interbreeding. So they're coming up with a class of swans and geese." And "we saw some. We actually saw some."

To other seniors, she said: "you've got to try this. You've really got to try this. It's so calming, and being able to see nature and whatever's around you is just beyond words."

Coordinator Nancy Gray, a new retiree and avid cyclist, says the program now needs volunteers, donations and riders. 

McMaster University, New Hope Community Bikes and the Hamilton and Oshawa Port Authority have helped with the program so far. The fundraising goal, Gray says, is to make enough to buy five trishaws over five years. Right now, the program has one, and they cost about $14,000 each. But for pilots and riders, they're a smooth, pleasant ride. 

"Even up a hill, you just change the gears, put it on two instead of three, and it just goes," she said. 

Riders so far range from age 70 to 102. The pilots are from age 30 to their seventies. Lorraine Chapman, 72, cycles multiple times a week and volunteers as a pilot.

"This is the funnest volunteer work I've ever done," she said.

Both Chapman and Gray say more seniors who are able to cycle would do so if the city had more bike lanes. Gray just did a 200-kilometre ride at Mount Tremblant and it had "a complete, multiuse trail." Hamilton needs something similar, she says.

"We need more protected bike lanes, like the ones on Cannon Street," she said. 

"The routes need to be really clear," Chapman said. "You need to have cyclists involved in traffic-flow decisions."

The local chapter is the newest of more than 30 across Ontario.