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Angela Lucas, Rider #4446

About the Ride

The Route - Other Rides - The First Ride - News coverage

- news coverage

The California AIDS Ride is a spectacular journey by bicycle through a dream world. We will ride with 2,700 under the blue skies of California's Wildflower country through gorgeous coastline, scenic backcountry roads, and splendid panoramic mountain vistas. On the final day, we gather at a special staging area in Los Angeles from which we will cycle as a group to the Closing Ceremonies, an incredibly moving experience.

People have also said the AIDS Ride is the best-organized event they have ever seen, and with good reason. It is a fully supported event. Delicious meals, hot showers, massage and chiropractic services, medical services, bicycle equipment technicians, and nightly entertainment are all provided. The route also has 5 daily water and snack stops, located approximately every 15 miles, full of cheering volunteers. At night, thousands of riders will sleep in what they call a "Tent City" - our home away from home for the entire week. All we need to worry about is to pedal, as quickly or leisurely as we like, having long conversations with new friends and experiencing the beautiful scenery. Remember that the C.A.R. is not a race, but a journey, just like life itself.

Bicycling Magazine covered CAR4 back in 1997.

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Other AIDS Rides
The California AIDS Ride is part of a much larger AIDS Ride community. There are five Rides happening this year - over 11,000 cyclists. Many of them have never done anything like this in their lives, but they've decided that this is not a time for things that are easy - that the AIDS epidemic requires something much more of us - and they've made the commitment. In spirit, everyone is riding together across hundreds and hundreds of miles of American landscape, proving that one human being can make a difference.

In 2001, eleven cities and more than 11,000 bicyclists will participate in the five AIDS Rides, the largest program of AIDS fundraisers ever. More than $50 million is expected to be raised for AIDS-related services at dozens of AIDS agencies this year bringing the total to over $127 million.

Other AIDS Rides: Washington D.C.: North Carolina to D.C. Heartland: Twin Cities to Chicago Northeast: Boston to New York Texas: Austin to Dallas

AIDS Vaccine Rides: (Unrelated to the AIDS Rides but the same concept. Money goes to AIDS Vaccine Research.) Alaska: Fairbanks to Anchorage Canada-U.S.: Montreal to Maine Montana: Missoula to Billings

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The First Ride
A whole new concept in AIDS fundraising was launched on May 1, 1994, when 478 cyclists departed San Francisco for a 525-mile, 7-day journey to Los Angeles. The courageous pioneers, most of them from Los Angeles, were hoping to raise nearly $1 million. They far exceeded their expectations, raising $1.6 million for AIDS services at the Jeffrey Goodman Special Care Clinic housed at the LA Gay & Lesbian Center. With a minimum goal of $2,000, each Rider raised an average of $3,100 and was a part of the most successful first-time AIDS fundraiser in American history.

One year later, the AIDS Riders did it again. They quadrupled their numbers this time, joining with riders from San Francisco to raise funds for both the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Nearly 1,900 riders made the same trek exceeding their goal and raising $5.5 million.

In September of the same year, the AIDS Ride concept was taken to the East Coast. Boston >>> New York AIDS Ride was originally slated to raise $4 million. Instead, nearly 3,800 participants raised $6.6 million on their 3-day, 250-mile journey.

Since the first AIDS Ride in California in 1994, the AIDS Rides have raised an astounding $127 million for AIDS service organizations around the country through the summer of 2000.

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked,
in which you can walk with love and reverence.
- Henry David Thoreau