Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Student To Bike 330 Miles To Support AIDS Research

Nima Salimi (GRD ’02) will start his 330 mile bike trip from Raleigh, N.C. to Washington, D.C. as part of the sixth Washington D.C. AIDSRide on June 21.

Salimi said he decided to participate in the ride after the non-AIDS related death of a friend last year who was a strong supporter of the AIDS prevention cause and a participant in the California AIDSRide. Although this is Salimi’s first time participating in the AIDSRide, he said he has been active in the AIDS walk for many years.

For Salimi, the AIDS walk was a “totally different experience” because it exposed him to people who suffered directly from the death of their loved ones. This experience as well as the fact that Washington, D.C. has the highest AIDS rate in the nation, were the main factors Salimi said influenced his decision to participate in the ride.

The AIDSRide takes place over four days with riders averaging from 80 to100 miles per day. To prepare, Salimi has started completing training rides once a week that are led by an AIDSRide group leader and average about 50 miles.

The AIDSRide provides all food and sleeping arrangements, making the duties of the rider simply to ride and raise funds. Each rider must raise a minimum of $2,400 in order to participate in the event.

The official start of the AIDSRide is June 20, when participants check-in, watch a mandatory safety video, meet other riders and meet their “tent-mate,” with whom they will be sharing sleeping accommodations during the three nights of their ride.

After the opening ceremonies on June 21, riders will start cycling at 6:30 a.m., and ride straight until the first pit stop. Pit stops are placed approximately every 15 miles. There, riders can fill up their water bottles, have a snack or, if necessary, have their bike repaired.

Riders have all day to reach the Mobile City, dubbed a designated rest stop each night. If the rider does not reach the site by dusk AIDSRide volunteers sweep the routes and deliver the riders to the camp via AIDSRide vehicles.

According to information provided by organizers, there will be more than 1,700 people participating in the D.C. AIDSRide. Salimi says that he expects the age range of participants to be wide because, according to his friend who participated in the ride, the California AIDSRide consisted of “kids” as well as “50-year-olds.”

AIDSRide originated in 1982 when founder Dan Pallota and Harvard classmates organized a 40 person, 70 day, 4,200 mile cross-country bike trip to raise money for hunger relief. In 1992, realizing the extent of the AIDS epidemic, Pallotta and his fundraising/consulting firm, now called Team Works, joined with the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center and Tanqueray to launch the first ride in California.

Today there are five different Tanqueray’s AIDSRideUSA rides: California, Florida, Texas, Raleigh to D.C. and Boston to New York. Collectively, over 10,000 riders participate in the fight against AIDS through AIDSRide.

The beneficiaries of the Washington, D.C. AIDSRide are Food & Friends, a non-profit organization which aims to treat “under-nutrition” among AIDS victims, and the Whitman-Walker clinic which addresses health care issues of the gay and lesbian community reaching, “two out of every three people living with HIV/AIDS in the Washington, D.C. area,” according to the clinic.

The AIDSRide pamphlets said that in Washington, D.C., 90 percent of AIDS victims are African Americans and the greatest increase of cases occurs among “people of color, women, injection drug users and through heterosexual contact.”

Salimi is not nervous for the AIDSRide because he knows the ride is “not a race.” He said he hopes that through his participation in the race he said hopes to encourage others to get involved in the fight against AIDS. Those interested in AIDSRide may visit www.aidsride.org.

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