Hitting the brakes
This year’s AIDS Life Cycle cancellation has left participants in search of community, exercise and purpose.
JESS MAGILL, FERNANDO PACHECO, AND JIAN YANG
Bob Katz has been living with HIV since he first tested positive in 1985. Born and raised in New York, and living in the big apple while the AIDS epidemic became a global health crisis in the early 1980s. As New York got sweeps by the virus, Katz moved Washington DC and later to San Francisco where he began treatment. Katz has witnessed both the deathly aftermath and how the community overcome the epidemic. He first rode for AIDS when it was called The California AIDS ride, and continues riding long after the ride became AIDS Life Cycle.
Tony Asaro decided to overcome his bikephobia by participating in AIDS Life Cycle’s 2018 ride. He found a supportive biking group named ‘Pedal Pups,’ which he would later become co-captain for. ALC became a way to support his own community, the queer community of San Francisco. Asaro shares his first experience doing the 545-mile bike ride while he remembers the ride’s physical demand, being motivated by ALC’s love bubble, and enjoying the scenery of costal California.
Madison Petrali had been cycling for over a decade. In 2020, she was set to participate in her first ever AIDS LifeCycle ride, which she had spent the year preparing for. With COVID taking its toll on the United States, she could wind up having to wait up to another year or even two for the next opportunity to come along. Madison tells us her story as a cyclist whose first taste of ALC has been marred by the unforeseeable events of the past year, and what that means for her going forward.