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A New York City nonprofit helps blind riders take bike rides. I rolled with them.
By
Jeff Lunden
Published May 31, 2024
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Courtesy InTandem Cycling
By
Jeff Lunden
Published May 31, 2024
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As the weather gets warmer, you'll see more and more New Yorkers on bikes — and in Central Park, you may even see cyclists in blue T-shirts and jerseys riding tandem bikes.
They’re part of a local nonprofit organization called InTandem Cycling, founded by Artie Elefant in 2013. Elefant was an avid cyclist who lost his vision due to retinitis pigmentosa, but realized he could ride a tandem bike. While Elefant died of cancer that year, his vision for the group lives on.
The group sponsors free rides four times a week year round, but they really get going in the springtime.
Maria Dimeglio, a member of InTandem’s board, has retinitis pigmentosa and uses a cane. In 2015, a friend told her about InTandem. She had never ridden a bike and initially felt scared, but after she did her loop, she “got the bug” and fell in love with it.
“It's more than just riding a bike,” said Dimeglio, on a Saturday last month. “It's more than just exercise. It is socialization. It is good for your mental health. It's teamwork. It's working together.”
It’s also about safety first. Participants can’t just pick up a tandem bike and start riding; they need to undergo a two-step training process that includes a Zoom meeting and an in-person training.
A tandem bike is bigger and heavier than a regular bike, with a wider turning radius. It’s similar to the difference between driving a sports car versus a station wagon. Stopping and starting are especially difficult. Another challenge is that both riders really need to be in sync.
InTandem uses nautical terms for its riders. The front rider, who steers the bike, is called the captain. In the back is the stoker, who helps provide energy from the rear, just like the people who fed coal to steam engines.
When you ride as a captain, which I did when I trained in early April, you realize the tremendous responsibility you have for the safety of the person on the back of the bike.
Central Park can be like a slalom course — you have to be hypervigilant, watching for people cutting across the road, other bikes, pedicabs, horse-drawn carriages and stop lights. And you need to communicate everything with the stoker.
A few weeks after passing my InTandem training, I rode with Wendy Blauman, who has very limited vision. Wendy used to run marathons, but joined InTandem after an injury.
“I love being in the park,” she told me. “I love being active. I get to meet lots of people doing this. I get some great friends and get to explore the city and some other places, too, on the bike.”
On the day I rode with Wendy, Anjela Capanpangan was handing out bikes in Central Park. She’s been a captain since 2017.
“You know, initially you come in hoping that you're helping people that have disabilities,” she said. “Once you ride with them, you totally forget that somehow they have disabilities and there's just a friend you're riding with.”
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Jeff Lunden
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