Mon, 16 Jul 2007 23:53:10 GMT

After a long long delay (sorry!!!)

Days 3 and 4 are finished!

Also, here's a silly little video of one of the groups I did some training rides with. I'm the one in the bright blue Wolverine t-shirt.

There's a lot of blank space and little hiccups on the end. Its really over after about 2:40.

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:56:55 GMT

I apologize for the slowness in updates. I started a new job upon returning, and it eats a lot of time (as well as energy). I'm leaving for about a week today, so there won't be any updates before Thursday of next week. I am trying to get Day 3 finished before I leave though.

Thanks for reading!

Introduction

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 19:56:13 GMT

Hello, and welcome. A little bit about me first, if you don't mind. My name is Joanna. This year (2007) was my second year riding in the AIDS Life Cycle. This year I was rider 1690. I am HIV negative. I have never lost anyone to AIDS. In fact, the only people I know who are openly positive are people I met on this ride this year and last year.

So why do I ride? I ride because way back when I was a wee impressionable kid of 19 I broke my mother's heart when I decided not to go to medical school. I felt then, as I do now, that the American medical system is heavily flawed. I wasn't comfortable becoming part of a system that ignores those most in need simply because they don't have enough money to placate the drug companies. I wasn't comfortable becoming part of a system that only treats symptoms, often times long after its too late for any real healing to be done. I wasn't comfortable with the institutionalized discrimination, and inbred sense of disdain so many doctors seemed to hold for their patients. Of course, being 19 I wasn't coherent enough to state it that way, and simply told my mother I was moving to Atlanta to be a professional wrestler.

I won't bore you with the lengthy account of what happened in Atlanta, or the strange and varied circumstances that brought me to Los Angeles. Looking back sometimes I'm not entirely sure myself, but here I am. I had heard about AIDS Life Cycle (ALC) first from reading the journal of fd_midori I remember thinking "Wow, cycling from San Francisco to Los Angeles. That's crazy!" I remember thinking how much I admired the courage of everyone involved, and how I'd like to participate one day, time and money allowing. Well, the next year I had a pretty good year financially, but in mid-July I was hit by a truck while riding my bike back home from running errands. The driver crushed my left arm, and I was left with a crippling fear of traffic, an inability to ride (devastating to me, since I live in Los Angeles with no car, and in fact at the time didn't even have a driver's license), and an urgent sense of my own mortality. I knew I needed to stop complaining about things, but not taking steps to remedy them. I knew I needed to do something positive to both get me back on the road, and make a statement about what I believed. I knew it was time to do something small, yet epic.

So this time, when I saw the ALC booth at the Hollywood Farmer's Market, I took a pamphlet. I thought about it for a very short period, but I knew this was what was in store for me. Hundreds of cyclists, hundreds of miles, and millions of dollars raised for prevention, education, and to provide low and no cost medication to anyone living with HIV or AIDS. Unfortunately, I suffered some continuing health problems from my accident. When ALC 5 finally rolled around they were not fully resolved and I was restricted by my doctor to only riding half days. Still, thanks to my friends and family I raised just over $2,500 and with some 1800 other cyclists (who raised over $8 million in total) and 300 odd roadies (the number was odd, not the roadies... although... <3<3) I set off, and wound up completing about 60% of the route. What a rush.

This year I registered even earlier. I was feeling much better, and I'd bought some cycling gloves that pretty much took care of any lingering problems from my accident. This year I was going to ride the whole thing, I told myself. And a smaller voice in the back of my head told me, then you will have done your part. After all, I was going back to school. I was going to be a doctor, I was going to work for Doctors Without Borders. I was going to take these memories and this experience to the very top offices of the CDC and make them listen to me, because I did this bike ride once.

Once.

Twice.

Next year will be three times.

I don't know if I can fully explain the experiences I had. The experiences we had. These are my pictures, videos, and words, but they fall short of the enormity of our accomplishment. I don't just mean riding 556.8 miles. I don't just mean raising $11 million dollars, a new world-wide record for any single HIV and AIDS event. I don't just mean a(nother) record 2,333 cyclists. All that is amazing, yes, but there's also the intangible force of thousands of people standing up and saying "This is not how things should be. This is wrong, and I will fight, with every breath, with aching knees, bursting lungs, and screaming shoulders to see that it is put right."

Because what continues to go on in our world, and our country today <i>is</i> wrong. Children are being denied access to accurate age appropriate information that could mean the difference between a long healthy life and a tragically foreshortened one. Mothers are still losing children to this disease. Sisters, brothers, lovers, friends are being denied benefits, being denied assistance, being denied help. People are dying because they can not keep up with the thousands of dollars their medicine costs. Our government in slashing funding in order to continue killing people over seas. 40,000 new infections occur in this country each year alone, and over 10,000 of them are teenagers. Many as young as 13. What we have accomplished is such a small drop in the face of the vastness of need. But even a twig can turn an avalanche. And to the thousands of people who walk through the doors of the LAGLC each day, I know I've helped make a real step towards a better world.

Oh, and as a little note to avoid confusion, since the entries are back dated to correspond with actual date of occurrence, you may want to start from the bottom (day 0) and work your way up.

Rider #1690 ALC 6 Journal

Introduction