Washington DC AIDS Ride # 6: Wet, cool and glorious: Part 3

Sunday, June 24, 2001

If I hadn't been excited and proud, I would have probably written something like this: Blessed be the many miles logged on business class flights across two oceans--I got plenty of earplugs out of them. While the night spent in the gym at Hylton High School outside of Manassas was somewhat cold, at least it wasn't noisy. Yeah, getting into wet biking shorts was hardly the best way of starting the last 45 miles of this trek, but lycra dries quickly when you shiver inside it.

The ride itself was uneventful, although full of pleasant chats and smiles and hugs with people excited that it was almost over. I ran into one coworker in Oakton, and missed a couple others on the ride.

For four days I had been looking forward to the last unofficial pitstop at the Java Shack, and sure enough, it didn't disappoint. Frozen coffee treats, sunshine, and cheering in Courthouse after a triumphant ride through Clarendon, which had set out a big banner welcoming us back home.

Thousands of riders arrive at the National Mall

The ceremonies at the end--well, they were emotional, and I cried, for reasons very different to those that caused tears last time. Two years ago, the four days on the road were a personal victory over twenty-three years of athletic failure. My whole ride was about me completing that big personal challenge. This time around, the ride for me was much more about everyone else around me.

Of course, meeting new people and realizing that I'm an incredibly lucky man played a significant role in shaping my attitude towards the whole event. However, and what surprised me the most, and what shook me up the most, is realizing how many people that I know are living with HIV. The number of Positive Pedalers flags I saw on bikes ridden by people I knew but who I did not know were going through this daily struggle made this event intensely real. Up until this weekend, AIDS and HIV were something that affected many of the communities I belong to, but not something that had touched me personally; I couldn't say I had lost friends or lovers to AIDS. I felt lucky, and in my tears felt almost as if I was leeching off of other people's sadness, like I was taking on a cause because I felt some sense of obligation to do so. It's different now; knowing that people who have affected my life are fighting a daily battle for survival fills me with a sense of delayed urgency and with what I can now identify as the helplessness and anger that fueled those who started groups like ActUP and GMHC. It fuels me with a renewed, even more intense, and much more selfless hope that there will be an end to this disease--but now, not only because I'm afraid of someday becoming one of its victims, but because I hope that the end of the disease will represent the return of full health to those I know.