California AIDS Ride 2 Summary
This ride was put on by the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services
Center, in order to raise money to help maintain and expand the services
available at the Jeffrey Goodman Clinic. This clinic has become the only
resource available to many HIV and AIDS patients who have no medical
insurance, and because of the efforts of this year's and last year's riders,
the Clinic will be able to become a full-fledged one-stop treatment center,
for everything from HIV testing to special-care treatments. This ride had
over 1900 riders, who together raised over 5 million dollers for the Center.
We had riders from all over California, and several from out of state. Money
was collected from corporate sponsors and personal pledges all over the
country. Tanqueray underwrote $250,000 dollers to actually put on the
ride as well, making a huge step in the corporate world of helping out
causes which, due to "social implications", many political and corporate
institutions avoid.
The visionary who first conceived the idea of a ride from San Francisco
to Los Angeles is Dan Palotta. He was joined by the Executive Directors
of the Center and of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Lori Jean and Pat
Christienson. Pat rode with us this year, and Lori Jean was our nightly
announcer and pep squad -- she's really quite a riot. The first year
they had 500 riders and raised $1.7 million dollers. They were trying
to triple the size of the ride this year...and ended up almost quadrupling
it. As Dan said to us on the evening of Day 6, the last night we were
camping (and I'm paraphrasing like crazy):
"People said we'd never get 500 people to ride from San Francisco
to Los Angeles. Those people were wrong. They said we'd never be
able to triple the size of the ride. Those people were wrong. The only
thing that we have learned on this trip is that We Don't Know. We don't
know what our limits are because we keep going beyond what people think
our limits are. Two years ago, we wanted to get 500 people riding from
San Francisco to Los Angeles, and we didn't know how to do that, but
we made a committment to get it done. And we did it. This year we
wanted to triple the size of the ride, and we didn't know how to do
that, but we made a committment to get it done. And we did that too!
John F. Kennedy made a committment that the United States would put a
man on the moon before 1970, and suddenly "we don't know how to do that"
turned into "we can't do it because we don't have this type of aluminum"
and "we can't do it because we don't have this type of rocket". It was
a daring committment for him to make, but because of that commitment
they succeeded in overcoming all of the details and problems that
tried to block them. Two years ago, I saw a hill, and that hill was called
500 riders. And we climbed that hill. This year, I saw a hill, and that
hill was called tripling the size of the ride. And we climbed that one
too. I see another hill now, and it's much higher, and much harder than
either of the two behind us. It's called the End of AIDS. And we don't
know how to get there. But from all of you who made the commitment to
make this ride succeed, I want another committment from you, and that
is the committment to climb this hill as well. Because We Don't Know
that we can't do it. We don't know what our limits are."
Day-by-day summaries
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