On Thursday, September
twelfth, 1997, I drove with my
daughter's girlfriend to Boston. I
was attending a weekend writers’
retreat, while she and another
woman from our Vermont com-
munity were going on the Boston-
New York AIDS ride. Two state-
of-the-art bikes were stored in the
back of the car, along with care-
fully packed bags, thirty pounds
maximum, of extra clothing, hel-
mets, power bars, raincoats. The
packs would be carried by van
from one campground to another
along the bikers’ route. To join this
massive, precisely planned
fundraiser, each women had solic-
ited $1500 in sponsorships; they
had been training for months, on
roads all around Southern Ver-
mont and northeastern Massachu-
setts, to cover a 270- mile course
between Friday morning and Sun-
day afternoon.

Approaching the city, we
drove through Brookline, down
Huntington Avenue to Northeast-
ern University, the magnet where
people and bicycles had already
begun to converge. At a desig-
nated parking lot, riders repre-
senting a range of ages, pushing
shiny Japanese models and beat-
up bikes of no particular vintage,
were arriving to register and get
ready for a five-thirty departure
the next morning. My companions
unpacked their gear and said
goodbye, already drawn to the
challenge of three September days
on asphalt highways, back roads,
hills, bridges, and overpasses,
across Massachusetts and Con-
necticut—a carefully-laid- out trail
conducting the swarm of cyclists,
three thousand two hundred in all,

into the heart of New York City.

I went to my weekend re-
treat still carrying the image of the
two women's excited faces, still in
admiration of their strength and
fitness. When the weather turned
suddenly hot, I wondered how
they were surviving the long
miles. Once home, I eagerly in-
quired how the ride came out.

My daughter's friend had
made it, into Manhattan crowds
cheering from the sidewalks, had
posed for snapshots, smiling in
victory. Hearing her recount the
experience, a veteran now, I began
to comprehend what she had
done.

Despite the hype,_ despite
protests that the ride, with its great
profits to its organizer, Dan
Pallotta, had become a tool of com-
merce, despite the question of
whether money raised in many
states (over seven million dollars
in support of AIDS research and
services) should have benefited
only a single health center in Bos-
ton, these riders, going home with
sore legs to sleep and take into
their minds what their bodies had
accomplished, had created a per-
sonal bond, a thread spun of their
own life-force as they hunched for-
ward over handlebars or sat back
in ungainly energy-saving de-
vices, mile after mile. They cycled
past cheering relatives in subur-
ban towns, past urban children
who got into the act by pointing
out road signs and detours, they
settled like migratory birds on
their campgrounds at night, to eat,
sleep, and get up the next mom-
ing to mount their bikes once
more. This gesture, the pitting of
plain physical endurance and

Curbside

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I TALKED KEVIN INTO TAKING NATHAN
'ro STONES BEACH wmi Hm ToDAY.THlS
en/as ME A WHOLE AFTERNOON To GET
SoME WKITING DONE, AND lT’LL M50
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wiew IS A Lone o~E,.«wi> 1: boN"rR£-
Quirls Hm AT MY SIDE EVETLY SECOND.

 

  

by Elena Harap Dodd

THERE'S ALSOTHE ADDED
BENEFIT OF(HoPEFuLt.Y)iM-
Pkovwe THE Rt-:LATioNSr1 I P
BETWEEN THOSE Two. ...I
DON'T EXACTLY E x Pea THEM
. T0 Become [5050/vi BUDDIES
IN oNE DAY, BUT Mmrtse

THE SUN AND THE WAVES
WILL 5ooTHE some OF THE
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wheeled contraph'ons——a peaceful
army in lycra pants and shiny hel-
mets—against the scourge of a dis-
ease arising out of, yet dreadfully
subverting, human lifeblood and
sexuality, spoke eloquently of
hope.

It spoke also of identity, in
this country where self-hood, gen-
der, and cars become somehow
enmeshed. The mass of bikers of-
fered an alternative icon, at once
less ostentatious and more uncom-
promising than the automobile.
Riding in the company of thou-
sands they reflected for a moment
the larger world, broad streets of
Shanghai, dirt roads of rural India,
ordinary mornings in Amsterdam
and Quito. On their two-wheelers,
whatever the style, they seemed to
be stating, I am who I am. They
were coming out as human beings,
women and men, young and
middle-aged, lesbian, bi, gay,
straight. For three days they made
themselves visible without indi-
vidual fanfare.

I grew up to the romantic
rhythm of Alfred Noyes’ high-
wayrnan, riding, riding, riding, to
meet his hostage sweetheart, who
proceeded to shoot herself in or-
der to warn him and save his life.
Here was another kind of riding,
nothing romantic about the reams
of sponsors’ checks feeding into
the organizer's bank account, no
particular role assignments by
gender, while the epidemic these
cyclists wished to stem still stalks
our species. Yetl see the AIDS rid-
ers as authentically heroic. Their
brief takeover of roads and high-
ways became for me a stubborn
statement on behalf of health and
self-determination. A flawed

    

voices from the mountains

 

achievement, as all our accom-
plishments are—but one that
seems expressive of my hopes for
our society.

Coming to recognize this, I
understood why, during the hot
September days in Boston, be-
neath the surface of my work and
socializing, 'l chanted silently to
my daughter's friend:

Ride for the gray faces, the
young men leaning inappropri-
ately on walking canes; ride for the
children in jeopardy, swimming
toward birth. Ride for Gay Pride.
Ride for the women at risk on dark
street comers; for the quiet dead
in Thailand and Uganda; for tal-
ents that never ripened to matu-
rity, love that bowed to loss. Let
the country witness a solemn re-
quiem in whirring spokes, strong
legs bending and rising. Ride
through the recollection of sum-
mer training on country roads
where clusters of Queen Anne's
Lace saw you pass, each round
ivory eye with the dark pupil at
its center urging you to this test;
ride through the uninvited heat,
through New England fall, pass-
ing orchards and pickers on your
way to the Big Apple. Ride for the
doctors in their laboratories, for

’ volunteers testing new vaccines.

Ride with a promise of help, a vi-
sion of cure. Ride, friend, for all of
us, for those who are determined
to live, for those who are deter-
mined to comfort and heal, for
those who don't care, deny, are in
danger; for those who will die; for
those who will live when theAIDS
epidemic is a relic of history; for
families who can never forget.
Ride for me.

BY ROBERT Kxnnv

   
   

   

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http://www.visi.com/~oprairie/

OUT IN Ti-.:eIV\ouNi‘AtiNs — Aqcusr 199,8; -7 5

. \

F For

confidenfial

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to your ncctls. At Donn \\'ittci‘.
we i‘llt.‘il.‘~}ll|'C $llC\.‘L‘.N'S one il‘l\~'C!~'—
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