Tandem Cycling

Profile photo for Dave Williams
Not Yet Rated
0:00
Videogames
4
0

Description

Radio package produced by Dave Williams broadcast nationally in the UK on BBC Radio 4.

Vocal Characteristics

Language

English

Voice Age

Middle Aged (35-54)

Accents

British (General)

Transcript

Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
not so good on the hills where the climate is easier on the descent. Definitely, Colin is about to go cycling. He's borrowed a tandem bike from his local blind association on persuaded his mate Bend to go in the front. We get people are often asking if it's twice as hard. You can be a bit close to be twice as easy as getting started with. Cycling isn't always straightforward for blind and partially sighted people. Take Joel Young in Oxford, myself quite a sporty person, and I wanted to find something that I could do the same level as is everyone else, regardless of, you know, having slight loss or not. I actually realised that I couldn't go out cycling on my own because it'd be too dangerous to cycle. Given my visual impairment on DH, I wanted to find something that I could also do with my girlfriend or my wife. At the time that we could do together on DH tandem riding seemed the best fit for that last Joel, why you couldn't just buy himself a tandem now we didn't because we looked into and they were very expensive on DH. You know, we didn't know ever we'll have. How would find it really on? Did you explore any other options? Joel. Did you talk to your local blind association? Anything like that? Um, we did, but they didn't have any any any condoms available on didn't really have many links for me to explore its Get this helmet on here, secure it nicely. Undeterred, Joel went online and found Charlotte's tandems, a national charity who lent tandems to people with any disability. Alex Reaves, founder and trustee of Charlotte's tandems, explains, We've got helpers all around the country which lend out our tandems to people we've got help us, ranging from Well, I'm in Gloucestershire and we go all the way up to Inverness in Scotland, over to Northern Ireland, down to Kent in the Southeast. Don't Plymouth in the southwest and everywhere in between and about I don't know, about maybe 1/4 or 1/3 of all our borrowers have bean people with visual impairments. Blindness jump over the brakes on, gets the pedals from being ready. Right there. Really lovely feeling to be to be speeding along to be in the fresh air on DH, you know, not feel sort of inhibited by your environment. Really. My sister Catherine there, who recently rediscovered her own love of cycling with a bit of help from Charlotte's tandems, you can borrow tandem for at least two months on. Cycle it as much as you want. Most of our borrowers come and collect the tandems from us. Um, although some of our helpers will help deliver. We can lend out helmets to people if you want to burn one. Also hi vis jackets so that people can see you from a distance. So there's lots of communication needed tickly on the road. Obviously, when there's traffic lights and cars around, Um yeah, communication's key. And it's actually great for that as well. Developing communication with friends? Or will you? What we ask is that the borrower maintains the bike. So then, when you return it to us, the next people Khun, borrow it straight away and just as much fun. So now Catherine and Joel have had a taste of tandem riding. What do they think about cycling in the future? I'd be really keen to doom, or I need to find more people to go on the front with me and my friend is really enthusiastic and she'll fit in when she can. But we're both, you know, really, really busy, so we just need to find a few more people. But I would Yeah, I would. I would look a blind one. I think you tried out, took into your local cycling club. See if they have any any pilots that would be happy. Teo willing tto cycle with you and then if you enjoy it and like as much as I did which I hope you will look into buying a tandem on expensive secondhand tandems on on the Internet. When you contact us through the website, then I'll put you in touch with one of our help is around the country. You can find out some details from you about how tall you are, any particular needs that you have. And then we could match up a tendon and then hopefully you can get writing. I think you need to get those brakes sorted