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

Day 0, Saturday May 13

Day 1, Sunday May 14

Day 2, Monday May 15

Day 3, Tuesday May 16

Day 4, Wednesday May 17

Day 5, Thursday May 18

Day 6, Friday May 19

Day 7, Saturday May 20

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