Freedom Riders

Can a bicycling program change the lives of female addicts and ex-cons?

by Holly Otterbein

Neal Santos STRAIGHT AND NARROW: Gearing Up, founded by Kristin Gavin (front), aims to help female ex-cons maintain their health and sobriety through bike riding.

[ bicycle therapy ]

The members of Gearing Up, an all-female cadre composed of drug addicts, the homeless and ex-cons, are quite possibly the most polite bicyclists in the city.

Setting out at 8 a.m. in mid-August, about a dozen of them — in matching vests, Gearing Up socks and shirts, and perfectly snug helmets — wind through Mount Airy, on streets with ethereal names like Mount Pleasant Avenue, Greene Street and Mermaid Lane. Their scenery is just as tranquil, consisting of sycamores — trees that look like brown paint has been scraped off to reveal drywall underneath — and big homes covered in ivy.

Without fail, the women stop at every red light and signal at every turn. They are completely quiet at first, except when praising gravity on their way downhill, or dutifully warning others that there's a "Car behind!" or they're "Stopping!" or there's a "Door right!"

Halfway through the ride, when the women finally begin to talk, their spirit matches that of giddy, unself-conscious campers at a girls-only retreat. They yell "Hi!" to almost every person on the street. They break into song. They smack their rumps while passing cars. (It's an inside joke.)

When the clock strikes 9 a.m., they must pedal back to Interim House, a drug rehab center in Mount Airy. Whether they're full-timers or outpatients there, what follows is mostly the same, as all stories of addiction are mostly the same: They'll spend the rest of their day fighting relapse in every unexpected corner it coos, and struggling to regain their family, friends, jobs, purpose and health.

Gearing Up, which Kristin Gavin founded in 2009 as a Temple grad student studying exercise and sports psychology, is a group of about 20 female cyclists that leaves three times a week from the aforementioned Interim House and CHANCES in Chinatown, also a drug treatment facility. (In August, another Gearing Up consort kicked off at New Directions for Women, an alternative to prison on Germantown Avenue.) Members also partake in other cycling-related activities, like the Earn-a-Bike class with Neighborhood Bike Works and the upcoming Bike Philly ride on Sept. 12.

Judging by time alone, Gearing Up is an infinitesimal part of the women's recovery. For one thing, not everyone at Interim House, CHANCES or New Directions participates; it's completely voluntary. And those who do ride for just one hour a few times a week.

And yet, the payoff is often big. "The women here who pursue biking, especially those who continue with it through residential, have a lower relapse rate than those who don't," says Kathy Wellbank, director of Interim House for the past 17 years. "It definitely improves their chances of maintaining sobriety."

So, what's the secret?

Part of it lies in their shared history: Quaint as they may look on a steel steed, 80 percent of the women in Gearing Up have served time. Some were incarcerated for multiple DUIs or drug possession, while others were picked up for aggravated assault, attempted robbery, prostitution or "many, many different charges," as one woman tells me flatly. Nearly all say that addiction was the root of their problems; they wouldn't have ever sold sex or shoplifted or tried to steal someone's purse if they hadn't been high or trying to get high.

Interestingly, it's these formerly incarcerated women — especially those fresh out of jail, says Gavin — who benefit most from her program. If the city can figure out why this is and reproduce it elsewhere, its crime and recidivism rates could potentially drop, and it could spend fewer tax dollars on prisons.

Because Gearing Up is relatively new — about 16 months old — there's not much empirical research about its success. Gavin does have data on participants' ages, races, work history, social supports and other factors, which has illuminated who Gearing Up helps most, but she's in the middle of gathering more data about why, exactly, it helps them. She's full of anecdotal evidence explaining as much, however.

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

"The women coming from prison are humbled," says Gavin, who has a bike lane symbol tattooed on her right wrist and a bike chain link on her left. "Prison is hard living, and when they get out, they're ready to grab onto opportunities."

Perhaps more significantly, there's a problem that many of the ex-cons share that biking combats: "Almost all of them are overweight or obese when they get out," says Gavin.

Take Melissa Caraballo, for instance: The 29-year-old heroin addict weighed 110 pounds at the start of her sentence at Riverside Correctional Facility, Philadelphia's jail for women. When she left six months later, she was 179 pounds. After riding with Gearing Up for several months, she's down to a muscular 160.

"There are gyms [in prison], but we didn't get to go to them much because there aren't enough guards on duty to watch you," says Caraballo. "And there's nowhere to walk and nothing to do."

According to Gavin, the ex-cons she's worked with have gained an average of 10 pounds a month while in prison. Local advocacy groups report similar findings. "We hear from women at Riverside all the time that they put on weight," says Ann Schwartzman, the Pennsylvania Prison Society's policy director. "One of the issues is that the food at the prison is awful. ... They say they don't get much fruit and because the kitchen is off-site, things are usually cold and less appealing than usual. So, they go to commissary and purchase chips."

It's easy to argue that, as criminals, these women don't deserve a Whole Foods meal ticket or a glitzy rec center. But as Schwartzman points out, obesity makes it harder for female ex-cons to reintegrate into society: "We are a weight-conscious nation and ballooning while inside the jail is bound to add stress."

Furthermore, this stress increases the likelihood that they'll relapse.

Mike Resnick, a spokesman for the Philadelphia Prison System, doesn't deny that many incarcerated women put on extra pounds, though he thinks some of the thinner ones ought to. "While on the streets, they don't necessarily have good eating habits," he says. "So when they start eating three regular meals a day, of course they're going to gain weight."

Philly's Prison System doesn't keep track of how much its inmates weigh over time, which is indicative of how much it cares about tackling the issue.

That may soon change, however: This month, Gavin got the go-ahead on a pilot spinning program at Riverside for women who are at the tail end of their sentences and are likely to enter into transitional shelter like Interim House upon release. It will be the first program of its kind in the city; the only thing close was a lone yoga class once run by the Pennsylvania Prison Society.

If the women in Gearing Up are right, the spinning program's participants will boost their chances of recovery not simply because they'll be exercising, but because they'll be biking — a special kind of activity, at least to them.

"It makes me feel free," says Caraballo, acknowledging that spinning won't be quite as liberating, but close. Nearly everyone in Gearing Up also talks of "freedom" or feeling "free" when asked how biking is different than other workouts.

As women forever chained to something — be it poverty, addiction, a criminal record or all of the above — that word means a lot.

(holly.otterbein@citypaper.net