On a pristine September morning, Monsiou Dimerson and a cluster of cyclists leave NorthPoint Health and Wellness Center, cross Penn Avenue, and begin threading west through north Minneapolis. They’re a well-mixed bunch — young and old, ethnically diverse, and at varying levels of fitness. The orange bikes that most of them pedal resemble the green Nice Ride bikes seen around Minneapolis’ Chain of Lakes, but they’re sturdier and built for longer commutes.
The riders are members of Nice Ride’s “Neighborhood Program” — a.k.a. the “Orange Bike Program”— an initiative being piloted on Minneapolis’ North Side and in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood to increase bike ridership and physical activity.
Biking is booming in the Twin Cities metro. Minneapolis alone boasts 200+ miles of bikeways — 117 “off-street” and 91 “on-street” — and has a robust bike share system to boot. The city has garnered numerous accolades for this infrastructure, most recently from the Copenhagenize Design Company, a Danish firm that publishes an annual index of bike-friendly cities. In 2015, Minneapolis ranked 18 in the world, the only American city to crack the top 20.
And yet, biking is not prevalent in Minneapolis’ North Side, Saint Paul’s Frogtown, and many other low-income, culturally diverse metro neighborhoods. Enter the “Orange Bike Program.”
Participants — currently limited to residents 18 years or older who live on Minneapolis’ North Side and in St. Paul’s Frogtown — are given an orange Nice Ride bike (and a helmet, lock and key) to keep at home for four months over the summer. If they log at least three rides per week, attend four community events, and return the bike and its accessories at the end of the season, they receive a $200 gift certificate to Venture North bike shop. They can use the certificate to upgrade an old bike or purchase a new one.
In north Minneapolis, the program is a collaboration between Nice Ride; NorthPoint Health and Wellness Center (afederally qualified health center where doctors write orange bike “prescriptions” for patients with diabetes and high blood pressure); Venture North (a full-service bike and coffee shop which repairs orange bikes free of charge); the Major Taylor Bicycling Club of Minnesota (a nonprofit working to increase bike participation for Twin Cities African Americans that facilitates group rides); and the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation (the philanthropic arm of its health plan, which supplies grant funding for the initiative).
Nice Ride and its collaborators believe that biking can impact more than just one’s midsection. It also has the potential to affect health, economic, and lifestyle disparities. Two years into the Orange Bike pilot program, anecdotal evidence supports such claims.
On that recent September morning, Kendrick Hall, a Venture North manager, pumps tires and adjusts seat posts for bikers before their ride. NorthPoint staff hand out bottled water and makes sure everyone is wearing a helmet. Louis Moore, President of the Major Taylor Bicycling Club, explains the route.
Monsiou Dimerson is there with her mother, who also has an orange bike. She says the program gave her the impetus to start exercising again and that it’s also given her opportunities to “see around the city” and spend time with friends and family.
Willie Daniels, another Orange Biker, weighed 250 to 260 pounds in early 2015 and his systolic blood pressure was in the “200-range.” After his NorthPoint physician approved his participation in the program, he committed to cycling three times a week. “There are times when you don’t feel like it,” Daniels admits, but participation paid off. He’s down to 195 pounds.
John Dee is 78-years-old. “[This program] forces us old people to get off our Archie Bunker chairs,” he says, chuckling. He’s gone on more than 50 rides this summer.
Although these success stories are promising, LaTrisha Vetaw believes it’s going to take more to make places like north Minneapolis and Frogtown bike-friendly. “The next step,” says the Orange Bike facilitator for NorthPoint, is “building a coalition of people who are engaged around [bike] infrastructure” and willing to advocate for their neighborhoods on bodies like theMinneapolis Bicycle Coalition and The North Minneapolis Greenway Project.
Vetaw, Moore, and Hall have been staunch advocates on the latter. The greenway is currently in the “community engagement phase,” with a proposed route that would run 30 blocks from Shingle Creek Trail to Plymouth Avenue.
Education is also key. Vetaw says many North Side car drivers aren’t yet used to seeing bike riders. “People honk at you,” she says. “But that’s starting to change.”
Challenges aside, Vetaw is encouraged by the interest in the Orange Bike Program. In 2014, its inaugural year, 145 bikers participated in north Minneapolis and Frogtown. In 2015, 200 bikers participated. During a recent visit to Venture North bike shop, Vetaw told Hall, “Folks are already signing up for next summer. Tell anyone who’s interested to sign up now.” (To register, send an email to Vetaw at lvetaw@northpointinc.org.)
Peggy Moore, a first-year participant, joined after she saw a flyer at NorthPoint. At the time, Moore had high blood pressure and had not been biking in years. Initially, riding five blocks was daunting, but Moore persevered. On her first group ride, she dragged along her nine-year-old grandson; he ended up riding at the front of the pack with a Major Taylor staff member, learning hand signals as he went. From there, “this ended up being a family thing for me,” says Moore.
Many health initiatives depend on word-of-mouth, and Moore’s experience typifies that. She convinced her goddaughter and three neighbors to join the Orange Bike Program in 2015. That goddaughter, Toni Belfrey, now rides 10 to 30 miles per day with her partner. “This is clean, fun, and safe,” says Belfrey one morning in August. She’s pedaled over to NorthPoint to meet her godmother, and the two women stand outside talking — Belfrey in cycling clothes, Moore in black leggings and a pink t-shirt.
When asked who their bike heroes are, Belfrey and Moore say their take their inspiration from three women in the program, all ages 60 to 75. Their reasoning? “If they can do it, why can’t we?”
This article was published in October 2015 on Healthy You, Healthy Hennepin — Hennepin County’s online public health magazine — and is available at http://healthyhennepin.org/stories/orange-in-motion