Bicycling to Fight AIDS

P A S O   R O B L E S, Calif., June 5 -- Trailing in the wind behind some of the more than 2,900 bicyclists pedaling from San Francisco to Los Angeles are orange flags. The fluttering bits of cloth identify the Positive Peddlers, a group of 105 riders who identify themselves as HIV positive.

"So long as I can bike 575 miles, I must have a few good years left," said Tony Wietek, a culinary instructor from Chicago, who tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS five years ago.

Wrapped around his head is a bandana that organizers of the California AIDS Ride handed out this morning. "Twenty Years, How Much Longer?" the bandana reads, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the disease.

The AIDS ride began in California in 1993. It is one of several Palotta Teamworks' events around the country where people raise money to take part in the multi-day trips.

The California trip lasts seven days. This is day three and the riders are going from King City to Paso Robles, a 77-mile ride in temperatures hotter than 90 degrees.

Reasons to Ride

Every rider has a different story. Some are cycling for themselves, to prove they still have the energy and stamina necessary. Some are doing it for friends or lovers who have died.

"I ride in memory of my best friend who died in 1998. I ride for HIV positive people who can't ride and I ride to support the beneficiaries," said Joe Ede, who came from Minneapolis for the ride. Ede did his first ride in 1997, two months before he was diagnosed with HIV during a routine physical.

And others are doing it to raise money and awareness for a cause. Proceeds from the California are earmarked for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center.

"I will do as many of these as I can until there's a cure," says Tim Greene, a personal trainer in Los Angeles, who has done every California ride. "Young people today don't see death the way I did … They just see drugs sustaining lives of people who are HIV positive."

"Everyone I knew was dying of AIDS," said the 42-year-old, "And I reached a point where there was so much sorrow that I couldn't hold it inside of me anymore."