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Angela Lucas, Rider #4446

From BICYCLING Magazine
Nov / Dec 1997

IT'S PART PARTY, PART FUNERAL PROCESSION.
AND IT’S COMING TO A TOWN NEAR YOU.
IT’S THE AIDS RIDES.

BY SCOTT MARTIN

How many rides have you done where hundreds of people gather on the route shouting "Thank you!"?

How many rides have you done where a rest stop features dancers in fatigues discoing alongside a tank to the Village People‘s, "In the Navy?"

How many rides have you done where someone is pedaling 500 miles on a one-speed in tribute to a dead loved one who used to own the bike?

How many rides have you done where people yell, "Go girl!" and they're talking to a boy?

How many rides have you done where somebody's riding a $4,000 titanium bike with aero wheels-and has a plastic martini glass stuck to her helmet?

How many rides have you done where you get passed by a club of buffed cyclists who expected to be dead by now?

I'm guessing none (unless your club puts on one wild annual century). Same here, until this past summer. That’s when I signed on for the California AIDS Ride, joining 2,475 other riders on a week-long, 570-mile fund-raiser from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

I was expecting a pleasant "disease-ride" experience: log some miles; feel noble and a bit smug about supporting a good cause, go home. Instead, I found myself profoundly touched by an event that was both a giddy celebration of life and a grieving process for the dead. Like an Irish wake, but with lots of guys in drag. (When I say the event had a campy component, I'm not talking Italian bike parts.) Throw in great on-the-road organization and a touch of scandal, and you’ve got a memorable ride.

Now in its fourth year, theTanqueray American AIDS Ride raises money to combat Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, which will infect an estimated 40,000 people this year and has killed nearly 300,000 in the U.S. in the last 12 years. Since the Ride began in ‘94, organizers say, more than 20,000 participants have raised approximately $65 million. Each rider has to raise a minimum of between $1,500 and $2,500, depending on the event ridden. Many raise much more.

The event has expanded from the California ride to include treks from Orlando to Miami (three days, 275 miles); North Carolina to Washington, D.C. (four days, 360 miles); Twin Cities to Chicago (six days, 470 miles); and Boston to New York (three days, 275 miles). Organized by the LA fundraising firm Pallotta & Associates, the rides are presented by Tanqueray. BICYCLING (magazine) is one of several other sponsors.

Controversy dogged the event this year when reports emerged that some of the rides had fallen well below Pallotta's goal of giving 60% of-money raised to AIDS groups. The '96 ride from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., and the Florida ride each returned less than 30%. Pallotta reached an agreement this year with The state of Pennsylvania to pay $110,000 to settle charges that it violated state laws on solicitation of funds and registration of fundraising organizations. The settlement didn't require Pallotta to admit wrongdoing.

Ride organizers said the violations were unintentional and technical, and that the average return for all AIDS Rides over the past three years has been slightly below 60%. They also point to the favorable media coverage and public awareness the rides generate in the fight against AIDS.

But allegations weren't on riders' minds as nearly 2,500 of us gathered at Fort Mason on a chilly San Francisco morning last June. Mayor Willie Brown gave a rousing send-off speech and hundreds of onlookers cheered as we took off through the city streets. At nearly every intersection, people clapped and held up signs, a phenomenon to be repeated along the entire route. What was it about this event that stirred such a response?

The answer was on seatbags. And CamelBaks. And rear racks. Everywhere I looked in the long line of riders, I saw bikes bearing a photo or just a name of a loved one who'd died of AIDS, some with a date. Many people in the pictures looked young, much too young. Some riders wore shirts bearing the names of friends & family members struck down by the disease. Some shirts had dozens of names.

David McDevitt, a 40 year old financial analyst from Oakland, did the entire ride towing an empty child's bike in honor of his 7-year-old nephew Dillon, who was born HIV-positive. (AIDS is the life-threatening stage of HIV.)

"I went to visit my sister in the hospital when she was dying of AIDS in '95," McDevitt recalled. "That evening when I told Dillon his Mom was going to die, he looked at me and said, 'Who's going to take care of me? Are you?' That clinched it for me. I started thinking it would be cool to take this bike and raise consciousness about pediatric and adolescent AIDS. The majority of people in the U.S. still believe AIDS and HIV is a disease of a particular demographic group. I believe they're sorely mistaken."

Early in the event, McDevitt told me, a fellow rider asked if Dillon was going to attend the closing ceremony. McDevitt replied that he wasn't sure, because Dillon's foster mother couldn't afford the trip. Later, the rider approached McDevitt and said he had arranged for Dillon to fly to LA for the ceremony.

The sun was shining, a tailwind was blowing and I was riding my bike. But when I heard that, I felt like bawling.

Not for long, though. The AIDS Rides honor the fallen, but they are also exultations of life. They're more party than funeral procession. Costumes abound. The famed Chicken Lady, who's niether fowl nor female, sported a feathery outfit and repeatedly rode up and down the same hill to cheer on struggling riders. A habit clad Sister of Perpetual Indulgence pedaled past with a "NunBak" hydration system emblazoned with "Repent or Die." Bikes were festooned with streamers, ribbons and flags. Helmets sprouted Barbie dolls, foam lightning bolts, Wile E. Coyote dolls and a mini House of Congress.

The rest stops, spaced every 10 or 20 miles along the route, featured themes and costumed volunteers. At the Fort Hunter Liggett stop on the third day; I edged through the crowd to accept bagels and fruit from a suspiciously well endowed "soldier," while camo'-clad dancers gyrated nearby. At another stop, dubbed Trailer Trash, I got my Gatorade from a charming mobile home resident clad in a lovely housecoat.

Initially I felt nervous in what appeared to be a predominantly gay and lesbian event. I spent the first day watching people and asking myself "Are they or aren't they?" But after awhile, trying to guess everyone's sexual orientation seemed a waste of energy: It just didn't matter. What mattered was how friendly and supportive everybody was. Others felt differently about the event. Like Bob Drosdick of Riverdale, New Jersey; who, upon hearing that BICYCLING was sponsoring the AIDS Rides, wrote to cancel his subscription.

"AIDS is an epidemic because it started as the result of promiscuous sex among the gay community;" Drosdick wrote.

The best answer I can give is this: Come on the ride, talk to the people, hear firsthand about the pain AIDS has caused for both gay and straight people. Then judge the worthiness of this cause.

Here are a few of the riders' stories:

Bobbe Vagell was diagnosed as HIV-positive in '86. Now this muscular rider is part of Positive Pedalers, a group of HIV-positive cyclists who proudly wear jersey's proclaiming their condition. "We're sending a message that AIDS means life, not death," Vagell said. "I didn't think I'd live to age 30, but I'm turning 35 in September."

Irene Zaragosa had participated in AIDS dances, walks and quilts but that wasn't enough. "I've lost an incredible number of friends and family to HIV and AIDS," said Zaragoza, who rode while her partner, Mary Blankenburg, volunteered at rest stops. "This is the biggest gift I could give all of them. They're with me all the time. I call 'em my angels. When I go up the hills, they're there with me."

David and Willie Leamon of Mission Viejo, California, are a husband and wife who did the ride for their 37 year old gay son, Michael, who's been HIV-positive for nine years. "This has brought us closer to him," said David. "And it's introduced us to people in the gay community. We did meet some people who wouldn't support the cause because they think it's a gay disease. But our best donation came from Willie's 8-year old niece, who gave us an animal cracker box filled with $15 worth of coins."

Chris Evans, who volunteered for three years in an AIDS-prevention program, wasn't doing the ride just to fight the disease. "For a gay man especially, self-esteem is an issue," he said. "The stereotype is, we're not athletic. This is a way to overcome that absurd notion. This was also a way I came out to people. It connected the dots for them."

Even the loftiest cause suffers if you bonk after 50 miles. Happily, the AIDS Ride was one of the best organized events I've done. Every main rest stop boasted fields of food and streams of energy drink; massage therapists; fully equipped bike mechanics; and medical personnel dispensing ice, aspirin, sunscreen and the infamous "butt balm." Sweep vans patrolled the course, picking up stragglers who couldn't make the evening cut-off time.

At camp each night, you grabbed your luggage from the semi-trailer trucks that had hauled it from the previous stop, setup your tent among hundreds of others in a designated spot, headed for the hot-shower trucks after making an appointment for a rub-down or chiropractic treatment, then gobbled a heaping portion of pasta or chicken fajitas. Nightly entertainment followed, highlighted on the third day in Paso Robles by the comedienne Paula Poundstone.

Quite a change from the first AIDS benefit ride I attended in the early '90s. Back then, itwas a one-day fund-raiser put on by Different Spokes, a gay / lesbian cycling club in San Francisco. A few hundred people did the ride, then hung out at the Presidio, a military base in San Francisco. As I recall, the post-ride entertainment was a ballgown-clad singer named Ann Drogynoos - until base police shut things down.

"When we started, AIDS was not socially acceptable and we had a terrible time getting sponsors," recalled Derek Liecty of Different Spokes, which started the all-volunteer event in '85 and ran it until current organizations took over in '94. "But we raised the seed money for a lot of organizations that were then able to get over the hump and start hunting for big money. What the current ride has done is bring in the straight community. This kind of meshing of the gay and straight communities helps all of us in the fight against AIDS. And the wonderful thing is, the bicycle is at the core of it."

For some AIDS riders, that core was hard to digest. Judging by their pace and equipment, many had spent more time on the daunting task of fund-raising than on training. They labored uphill in a huge gear, hands low on their drop handlebars. Others plodded along on ancient, heavy rigs. Some were walking up a short hill a few miles into the first day.

"We see a lot of junk bikes" said J.B. Robinson, who supervised 16 mechanics on the California ride. A veteran wrench, he's worked many races, including the Race Across America.

"A lot of the repairs we do here are very emotional," Robinson explained. "It's like personal therapy. These people have busted their ass to raise the money and if they can't get back on the road, their whole year is lost. It's very different from other events I've done. There's no NORBA testosterone. Here, when you fix a bike they give you a hug and say, 'Thank you.'

"Probably the highest percentage of heterosexuals in camp are on the tech crew, and some of the mechanics aren't used to the atmosphere," he added. "But by the end of the ride, the crew is crying. They're affected deeply."

Aboard Huffy's or Merlins, the riders kept going. And they made it, all the way to L.A. Perhaps the pain of a three-mile hill is easier to take after you've watched your friend or lover or son, down to 80 pounds and covered in lesions, die in a hospital bed. Or maybe an eight-hour day in the saddle isn't so bad when you pass a group of kids from a Christian school - an institution you might expect to turn a cold shoulder to this event - who stand along the roadside, cheering and saying, "Thank you!" Whatever the motivation, the riders reached the finish and an emotional closing ceremony at the Avenue of the Stars.

How many rides have you done where you cry when it's over?

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We've removed the ceiling above our dreams.
There are no more impossible dreams.
- Jesse Jackson