This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Braking the Cycle AIDS rides.

Like any milestone anniversary associated with a life-threatening illness, the decade marker for an annual bike ride raising much-needed money to support AIDS/HIV services is a bittersweet one.

I am in awe of the folks at Global Impact Productions who have made this ride happen every year for a decade.

Rider Tommie Stringer, who calls himself “Team Turtle.” I met Tommie on the road during my first Braking the Cycle ride. Unlike me, he is always smiling, and it’s infectious.

I am inspired that the collective efforts of this small community have played a crucial role in saving and bettering the lives of so many who need the help. My inspiration is tempered by the equal amount of sadness I feel that this work has been necessary and even more, that there is any need for the ride to continue into another decade.

Still, I couldn’t be more proud to be part of this band of riders and volunteer crew members. Indeed, I am honored and privileged to ride in it.

I want to call particular note to the size of the BTC group. Braking the Cycle isn’t a big ride; it doesn’t register thousands of people the way the remarkable AIDS/LifeCycle event in California does. Most years, the number of BTC participants falls somewhere between 100 and 150.

That means the feel of the ride itself is intimate and unbelievably well-supported.

Fearless crew leader Christian Miller. He makes it all look so easy. Sadly, during the ride, my first reaction to seeing Christian is to hop on my bike and pedal away from him, given that his presence at a rest stop is usually accompanied by the warning, “Riders, you have 5 minutes to leave this oasis!”

My first BTC ride was in 2008. When I signed up that April, I knew no one. I was willing to go it alone, and I sort of mentally prepared to do so—both the fourth months of training and all three days of the ride itself—but in truth, the prospect of that solitude scared the hell out of me.

Those anxieties were unfounded. By early July, I had over a dozen regular training buddies, some new riders and a number of veterans. During the ride itself, I was equally astonished to discover that I met most of the participants. By Day 2, most riders and crew knew me by name, and vice versa. I met the same people on the road again and again.

This experience was very different from the Pallotta TeamWorks AIDS ride Jen and I did in the late 1990s. The infectious energy of those rides was derived largely from their size; over 3,500 people participated the year we rode. We met a lot of people. On the other hand, we rarely encountered the same ones twice.

My friend Clay Williams, who, like Tommie Stringer, I did not meet until the ride itself. We kept passing each other on the route all three days. Who knew that a conversation about chafing would ever be the beginning of a beautiful friendship?

The comparatively modest BTC stats make these figures all the more impressive:

• In its first nine years, with participation usually spanning between 100 and 150 riders and crew total each year, Braking the Cycle has delivered over $3 million in support of AIDS/HIV services.
• In 2011, BTC raised a staggering $462,000.
• The percentage of returning Braking the Cycle riders every year is mind-boggling. I’m coming back for my fourth year, and every year, at least one-half the participants have done it before.

My tenth anniversary wishes for Braking the Cycle are easy:

• May we all ride hard, ride proud, and ride safely.
• May BTC raise a massive sum for Housing Works, this year’s beneficiary.
• May the BTC ride never reach its twentieth anniversary because the AIDS/HIV epidemic is finally over.