For the Sheer Fun of It

Packing doesn't get any easier, neither does the challenge of 200 miles in a weekend at the opposite corner of the country where the weather will be hot, humid and stormy. You know what does get easier? All the progress made year over year in the war on AIDS thanks to every dollar fueling the side of the living, fighting against HIV. That thought will flood my mind when the kickstand goes up in Atlanta on Saturday and will eventually rest on the ultimate goal - the day we ride for the sheer fun of it again, when AIDS is history.

The joy of riding with Bret on our first bikes, circa 1966:

Missing You

"I wish you could have been there for the sun & the rain & the long, hard hills. For the sound of a thousand conversations scattered along the road. For the people laughing & crying & remembering at the end. But, mainly, I wish you could have been there"  - Brain Andreas, AVR2000 Wish List

Til AIDS is History

To know me is to know I ooze my passions, especially when hearts are involved. In two weeks, Mary and I, along with Puget Sound Rider teammates, Jon and Lisa, return to the AIDS Vaccine 200 for the 5th time. Today our friend and Ride Director of this year's event, Tina Chang, posted a Facebook #TBT to an interview of Mary and me on our first AV200 in 2011.

Mary and I will spend this weekend training....again....riding for the same reason, til AIDS is history.

Montana Memories

Dedicated to the memory of my friend and teammate, John Morse

Susan & John Morse w/2002 Breakthrough Riders

We pulled on team jerseys and headed out this early spring weekend to bid farewell to one of our founding members. John “Pappy” Morse was a man whose gentle manner betrayed his strength of character, who joined the Puget Sound Riders with more cycling miles under his belt than the rest of the team combined. John introduced me to spin classes as we trained to cycle Alaska and Montana, raising money for HIV vaccine research. He made the first donation to my self-supported Breakthrough Ride and continued to be a stalwart supporter each year since; now John joins our fans in a heavenly grandstand.

The calendar rolls ever closer to the 2015 AIDS Vaccine 200 weekend but I'm playing hooky from cycling this weekend. Instead, Steve and I took a long car trip to enjoy the rare opportunity of hearing our son play with both his bands in Missoula, Montana. Memories of the Montana AIDS Vaccine Ride flood my thoughts each time I drive through Big Sky country, never so much as this weekend, having so recently lost the one teammate who rode at my moderate (OK, slow) pace along the Lewis and Clark trail, across the Continental Divide in freezing rain and over rolling wheat fields in blistering heat. On Day 4 of that 7 day trek, John unceremoniously presented me with a pack of  scenic Montana playing cards as a birthday gift and on Day 5, when my day was cut short by a heat-induced tire blow-out, I put my ice collar around John's neck to keep him going another 40 miles to camp.

Our Puget Sound Riders team had raised more than $200,000 for HIV/AIDS vaccine research when we arrived in Missoula 14 years ago to honor those lost and affected by HIV and to share our commitment to ending AIDS with communities over 570 miles of Montana from the seat of a bicycle. We arrived with hope and determination to make AIDS history one mile at a time.

The last mile toward a globally accessible HIV/AIDS cure is within reach and the Puget Sound Riders remain ready to ride it. In 3 weeks I’ll pedal the AIDS Vaccine 200 through the Georgia countryside then keep training all summer to return east in late September for the Charity Treks HIV/AIDS Bike Trek covering 350 miles from Charlottesville, VA to Washington, DC. Contributions to this smaller sister ride of the AV200 have the bicoastal reach of funding HIV/AIDS research at Emory Vaccine Center and the equally innovative UCLA AIDS Institute, beneficiaries of both those early HIV vaccine rides across Alaska and Montana.

The road has been long but traveling it together with Pappy, Bret and many more angels in heaven and on earth cheering us on with hope and determination, we'll make AIDS history.

Montana AIDS Vaccine Ride memories:

Focus, Partner, Achieve – A World AIDS Day Reflection

The virus would surely kill him but not today. Today he was stable enough to be released. He would need the support of loved ones and constant medical care the rest of his remaining days but people were afraid of the virus and insisted on keeping it as far away as possible, even if it meant isolating its host…

Ebola isn’t the first deadly virus to come knocking on America’s door. Daily headlines of Ebola diagnoses brought the early days of HIV ignorance roaring back to life, a time when fear led so quickly to closed borders and hundreds, then thousands of people left to die, untouched and alone. 

…He was no longer welcome to stay in this foreign land and the diagnosis now banned him from returning to his own…

What had humanity learned from its 25 year crusade against HIV that could provide solace as we squarely face Ebola today? Could fears be eased by facts as they had in the past? Most importantly, would compassion rise above our worries to heal the world?

…Yet there were those who were not afraid, their ignorance eradicated by knowledge. Brave souls who knew there was no danger, chose to mask the stigma-laden facts and sent him home with dignity.

My brother got lucky in the midst of his most ill-fated days to know such bravery at the time of his AIDS diagnosis decades ago. There’s hope in the similar stories of heroic boldness in the presence of this Ebola outbreak. It causes me to linger on the “World” of World AIDS Day and reflect on the tenacity of a global generation that lassoed HIV and maintains a tight grasp to postpone its devastating spiral to a fatal AIDS diagnosis. What began as an ego-driven race to exclusive credit for the next breakthrough evolved into dependence on global partnerships, a humbling acceptance that one size treatment, delivery method, and prevention message does not fit all and AIDS cannot be defeated until the world is cured.

HIV, like Ebola, is an equal opportunity virus that laughs at the walls and closed doors containing our fear. To defeat such a beast requires no less than the message contained in this year’s themefor the World AIDS Day goal to bring about an AIDS-free generation – Focus, Partner, Achieve. Cure the world.