The Cycling Orthotista

T.D. Fisher, CO, an orthotist at the Oakland, Calif., office of the Center for Independent Rehabilitative Services (CIRS) and a long-standing Cascade customer, has gone green in a big way. She bikes to her clinic visits.

While she was still driving, T.D. worked with staff to convert her clinic days from point-to-point into full days at one place. She was happy for the simpler days but still wasn’t satisfied with her environmental footprint. She then decided to shift gears, so to speak.

Her next challenge was to find a way to deal with the distance: some sites are seven miles away and some are 50. T.D. had to get past mountains, since several of her clinic sites are over the East Bay hills. For long distances she uses Bay Area Rapid Transit—the BART. Thankfully the rail stations have elevators!

The final step was to arrange a setup to carry tools, casting supplies, HKAFOs and plaster casts of TLSOs. An eagerly supportive therapist friend gave her an old Burley child trailer, which she refurbished for cargo and now hitches to the back of her bike. It works for short distances, but she can’t fit the Burley on the BART for her longer trips, so she loads everything in metal baskets and onto a rack. This requires efficiency, strategic packing and good wheels to hold the load. (Thus she has two cargo plans.) The distances she rides are farther, but they are all on bike paths, many of them converted rail lines. T.D. says, “I don’t use the extra biking time as work hours, so my days are longer but much more satisfying.”

Reaction from colleagues and clients has been interesting and enormously positive. T.D. reports, “There is no way I could do this without support from all the therapists out there. Some have started biking with me to work. And I often throw some tennis rackets in the Burley trailer so that PTs and I can play tennis during lunch.” Children often pass T.D. biking as their parents drive them to the clinic visits. They are always thrilled to see her. T.D. credits some of that to the recreation programs many of the kids are in: they involve bike-riding, and the kiddos now see T.D. as a companion bike rider. “It just makes people happy, so it’s a great connection,” she says.

T.D. points to a few key issues in taking the cycling plunge. “The real trick is setup and how to fasten things on,” she says. She reinforced and waterproofed her trailer to handle the load. Casts made with fiberglass casting tape stand up well in the rain, and she always carries plenty of plastic bags anyway. Having experienced the working realities of biking full-time since March, she has altered her setup as needed. Another issue is clothes. T.D. mentions always having a second set of clothes at work, but more and more, her normal biking getup is perfectly acceptable to patients and therapists. She brings her entire bike, trailer and all, right into the schools. Finally, T.D. is glad for a day or two per week in the CIRS office to go to the nearby hospitals, fabricate and modify casts, do paperwork and have appointments come to her (!). But cycling does not stand in the way of doing her job well and on time.

T.D. is happy to serve as a support person for anyone else who wants to become work-mobile on a bike. To ask her questions about gear or providing orthotics by bike, you can call her at CIRS: 510/653-9834.

T.D. en route with her materials in side baskets and a converted Burley trailer. When she’s taking the BART, T.D. uses the side baskets and a rack to bungie cases on in a sort of tower. Note the structural role the TLSO plays.