ELDERLY people in Clacks could seen be traversing the county's cycle paths in some style, thanks to the efforts of Alloa's belly dancing fundraisers.

The group came together to support Cycling Without Age (CWA) – a charity dedicated to helping older people to get out on a bike.

However, the twist is the vehicle is a trishaw and is powered by volunteers.

With its chariot-esque look, the bike will soon by pedalling around Clackmannanshire, after the belly dancing group handed a £550 cheque to the charity.

Christine Bell, who is a project manager for CWA in Scotland, said: “We are being set up to go out across the whole of Scotland. It is to take people out of care homes and on to bikes.

“This gets them into events and we hope it stops some level of isolation that they may suffer from. There has been a huge amount of press about the charity so far. One of our videos even got 38m views on YouTube.”

Christine went on to praise the belly dancers for their efforts in getting the charity to the Wee County.

She said: “The Alloa belly dancing group has been very proactive to get their trishaw. They came to us out of the blue and just said they wanted to help.”

Tineke Kemp, one of the belly dancers who handed over the cheque to the charity, said: “I was drawn to it after seeing them on the television. Clacks has a lot of good cycle paths, so we thought it would be a good idea.”

Tineke explained that the group, which consists of eight people, dance purely to raise money and have a laugh while doing so.

She said: “We only take our travel costs for ourselves. The rest we put to charity. We always try and donate to a local charity, such as a care home, The Gate or a breast cancer charity, etc.

“We have been doing these dances for the last five years. We then held a raffle for the rest of the money raised for the bike.”

Although the charity was very grateful for the donation, it came as something of a shock to get it from dancers.

Tineke added: “They really did not expect to be getting it from that angle.”

CWA is a movement started in 2012 by Ole Kassow. Ole wanted to help the elderly get back on their bicycles, but he had to find a solution to their limited mobility.

The answer was a trishaw and he started offering free bike rides to the local nursing home residents.