At this time next week, I will be getting up at an ungodly hour to ride out of Boston for Day 1 and the first 100 miles of Braking AIDS Ride 2013. I am now at a point where I am making lists of the miscellaneous items I need to buy before I pack. I am less than $1,000 away from my $10,000 fundraising goal (yes yes, donations can continue to roll in! Donate once! Donate twice! Donate three times a lady! Donate here and now!). Last week, The Blue Streak got a major cleaning, a tune-up, and a new chain. I look at that bike every day and I still marvel that I’ve ridden over 12,000 miles on her, that I somehow became a person capable of logging 12,000 miles on anything without a motor. I will likely put in one more long ride this weekend and maybe a few shorter ones, but the time for hard-core training is done. I now have to enter that exciting, terrifying well of uncertainty in which my questions and doubts tend to echo loudly, and I just have to sit with them, and with my hopes, my goals, my disappointments, my strengths and weaknesses, and while letting myself feel that vast sea of all I put into and get from this ride, I also need to trust myself, trust the training, and trust that I can handle whatever the ride and the road brings me.
After last year’s Braking AIDS Ride, I did a thank-you and 2012 post-ride write-up here in late October here, mostly focusing on the closing ceremony where I had the honor to speak. But I also meant to do a second postscript, replete with select photos from the journey, which was full of torrential rain, cold, hills, tears, grief, and more laughter and love and good will than I thought possible, from myself or anyone else. But Hurricane Sandy hit New York and our neighborhood hard, and then the holiday frenzy began, so this draft of a post stayed in my blog archive, unpublished all year.
I am sharing it now because the experiences and moments captured in these images represent only a fraction of what I wish I could say every time someone asks me why I do this ride for this cause, and why the next year and the next and the next, I do it again.
Me, riding in the pouring rain early Friday morning, Sept. 28, 2012, in Massachusetts, Day 1 of the ride. I don’t always look this serious when I cycle. But I do always look this serious when I’m freezing. Photo by Alan Barnett.
Crew member Laurel Devaney, rider Jordana Swan, and me, posing at Oasis 1, on Day 1, Friday, Sept. 28, 2012. When I first wrote this caption last October, it was about the rain and the cold. But Jordana passed away unexpectedly on Nov. 3 at age 31. I wanted to keep the lovely photo up, but I thought it would be more fitting to say something about Jordana. I didn’t know Jordana well, but I rode with her on Day 3 in the morning, and she was spirited, generous, energetic. Smiling every time I saw her all weekend. I didn’t know it at the time, but it turns out she crewed on the day that she was unable to ride, and on Friday night, after all our bicycles had taken from the all-day storm, she also volunteered to help clean everyone’s bike chains. Her death is a terrible loss, and she is much missed. Photo by Alan Barnett.
Me, still wet and cold, but decidedly happier, later on Day 1, Friday, Sept. 29, 2012. Photo by Alan Barnett.
The cards and messages left for us by members of the First Congregational Church of Griswold in Connecticut, near the end of Day 1, Friday, Sept. 28, 2012.
Members of First Congregational Church of Griswold were on hand at the church to serve us fresh pie, ice cream, hot coffee and tea, and all sorts of other baked treats. Their kindness warmed the entire space. It was an amazing place to have as the last oasis before the hotel in Norwich, Connecticut, especially after riding in the freezing rain all day long. Photo by Alan Barnett.
The members of the First Congregation Church of Griswold left a wooden cross for all the riders and crews of Braking AIDS Ride to sign. The cross remained there so that the entire congregation could see it on Sunday, but it was eventually sent to Housing Works, where it remains on display. Photo by Alan Barnett.
A number of the messages on the cross were dedications to the memory of friend and fellow Braking AIDS Ride rider Kyle Spidle, who passed away unexpectedly from meningitis the week before last year’s ride. He was 32 years old. Many of us knew Kyle from his first ride in 2008; he found out he himself was HIV+, just a handful of weeks before that ride. He came out with his HIV status at dinner on Day 2, in front of over 150 people, most of whom had only known him for two days, myself included. Watching him do that was one of the bravest, most moving, sad things I’ve ever witnessed. He rode as a PosPed (an openly HIV+ rider) the rest of that weekend, and for every day of every ride in the subsequent three years. Kyle was kind, inspiring, funny, and courageous, and I think of him often. Photo by Alan Barnett.
Kyle, mugging for the camera, during the ride in September 2009. Don’t let the smile and the hot bod fool you. He wasn’t just a pretty face.
Kyle, giving crew member Amy Hemphill a kiss for helping him fix a flat, Sept. 2009.
Friend and rider Chris Vaughn signing the cross at the First Congregational Church of Griswold. Photo by Alan Barnett.
Jen, picking out a card for us from the basket left for us by the children members of First Congregational Church of Griswold. The card is shown in two photos below. Photo by Alan Barnett.
The card Jen picked out for us, from the slew of cards made for Braking the Cycle riders and crew by children from the First Congregational Church of Griswold, Griswold, Connecticut. Day 1, Friday, Sept. 28, 2012.
Interior message of the above card, made by one of the children from the First Congregational Church of Griswold, Griswold, Connecticut. Day 1, Friday, Sept. 28, 2012.
The front of another of the cards made by one of the children from the First Congregational Church of Griswold in Connecticut. This was the one I picked out from the full basket of messages they left for us.
The interior message of above card made by one of the children from the First Congregational Church of Griswold in Connecticut.
Friends an d fellow riders Colby Smith and Chris Vaughn, Day 2, Sept. 29, 2012, also known as Red Dress Day. The idea behind Red Dress Day is, if every rider wore something red in memory of those who died from AIDS-related causes and those who live with HIV, and one took an overhead photographs of the ride-in-progress, from the bird’s eye view, the ride would look like a red ribbon.
Fellow riders Courtney Burbela and Mason Scherzer, on the ferry, just after having climbed the infamous Mount Archer in East Lyme, Connecticut, Day 2, Sept. 29, 2012.
Me, hugging new friend and Braking AIDS Ride 2012 husband Matt Martin, near the end of Day 2, Milford, Connecticut. Photo by Alan Barnett.
Close-up of me and Matt Martin, at an oasis in Nathan Hale Park, New Haven, Connecticut, Day 2, Saturday, Sept. 29, 2012. Photo by Alan Barnett.
“Thank god! An oasis!” Me, arriving at Silver Sands State Park, Milford, Connecticut, Day 2, Saturday, Sept. 29, 2012. Photo by Alan Barnett.
Rider Claude Grazia had his girlfriend meet us at Silver Sands State Park, the last oasis before the hotel in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on Day 2, Saturday, Sept. 29, 2012. Claude’s girlfriend brought this adorable creature, who was the first to greet me and attack me with love and dog kisses and licks when I got there. Photo by Alan Barnett.
Sunday, Sept. 30, 2012, Day 3, New York City. With fellow riders, about to turn the corner onto 9th Street where a crowd of applauding friends, family, and other supporters awaited us. It is entirely unclear to me what I might have swallowed to produce the beautiful expression on my face.
The check for nearly $221,000 that we presented to Housing Works at closing ceremonies on Sept. 30, 2012. The actual final total was higher, as riders and crew continued to fundraise until the end of October.
The Blue Streak 