GOOD HEALTH MAGAZINE : FITNESS : THE TRICYCLE

My mother, Tufts University professor Mathilda Holzman, suffers from multiple sclerosis. Over the past 30 years, she has gradually lost her mobility. As of 10 years ago, this former tennis player, skier and air-mattress surfer could no longer participate in any of those activities. Nor could she even walk without a cane or an arm to lean on. The sense of balance needed to stay atop a bicycle is not something she has anymore.

But since late 1981, Mathilda Holzman has put 3,000 miles on an English racing tricycle. Three-wheel riding has given her an enjoyable source of exercise, and it probably could do likewise for other partially disabled people.

Six miles at a stretch on relatively flat terrain is about what my mother can manage. It may not sound like much, but for someone who can only walk with a walker, it makes the outdoors newly accessible. Watching the countryside through the window of an automobile, she says, is like watching it on television, but cycling puts her where she likes to be. During the academic year, she wanders the quiet back roads of her hometown, Lexington, Mass., while in summer she rides the trails of Cape Cod.

It is impossible to say whether the biking has therapeutic value. But there is no doubt that without the tricycle she would get virtually no exercise, and that her forays through the quiet countryside provide a tremendous psychological boost.

Plus, there is pride of achievement. When her odometer hit 3,000 miles earlier this year, she telephoned her sons in Washington, D.C., to let them know how much she was getting around.