Twenty-five years ago this June, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control publicly reported on five unexplained cases of pneumocystis pneumonia in otherwise healthy men in Los Angeles. Within days, the CDC formed a taskforce to combat the increasing occurrence of pneumonia, Kaposi’s sarcoma and other rare infections that had previously only been seen in the elderly and debilitated. We now know that these were not the first cases, but it would be another year before the illness was definitively named and two more years before the virus was isolated. However, June 1981 is often marked as the beginning of the HIV/AIDS virus in the U.S.

In the ensuing two and a half decades, we’ve learned a lot more about HIV and AIDS. The medical community has developed treatments allowing HIV-positive people to live healthy, active lives for decades. We’ve learned how to prevent infections, even the passing of the virus from pregnant women to their children. And it seems that we are always almost in reach of a vaccine – there is now a set of vaccine trials occurring in Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as in other cities in the U.S. In fact, May 18 was World AIDS Vaccine Day, marking another anniversary; that of the day nine years ago when President Clinton issued a challenge to the world to find a vaccine and eradicate HIV.

Of course, prevention efforts and vaccine research, not to mention the treatments that have been developed both for those with HIV and those with opportunistic infections, are costly. Even though the federal budget for 2007 calls for almost $23 billion for HIV research, prevention and treatment (just under 1 percent of the entire budget), this alone isn’t enough to stop an epidemic that killed more people in its first 20 years than any other disease in human history. According to the UN’s body on AIDS, the virus has already caused the deaths of 3.2 million people. But while new infection rates are rising in the U.S., the government has been cutting back on domestic prevention efforts and research.

In California, it is estimated that more that 151,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS, with the expectation that 9,000 more people will be infected in the state this year. Roughly 81,000 Californians have died from AIDS in the quarter century since it was given a name. This makes California second in the nation in terms of AIDS cases since the beginning of the epidemic – hardly an enviable position for any state.

It is estimated that 40 million people around the world are currently infected with HIV, and it is expected that 5 million more will be infected this year.

Clearly, though we have advanced in some ways, we have a long way to go in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

More than 2,000 bicyclists, roadies and support staff from seven countries, ranging in age from 18 to 78, will be marking this anniversary and taking us part of the way toward an answer to the epidemic with a seven-day, 585-mile bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

This is the fifth year for the AIDS/LifeCycle ride, a joint fund-raiser for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center. But this wasn’t the first long-distance bicycle ride designed to raise funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS research. There had been another San Francisco to Los Angeles AIDS ride that started in 1994, but while that ride had been successful in raising funds (it raised more that $200 million between 1994 and 2002, with rides in California as well as between the Twin Cities and Chicago, Boston and New York, and Virginia and Washington D.C.), it also engendered controversy. The original AIDS rides were heavy on corporate sponsorship (labeled the “Tanqueray AIDS ride” by some critics) and on promotional costs. The company that marketed and ran the original rides, Pallotta TeamWorks, returned about 60 percent of the funds raised to the sponsorship groups, according to its own reports.

Concerns about the commercialization of the rides and the relatively low return on donations led the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center to go in a different direction and start their own fund-raising bicycle ride in 2002. That first AIDS/LifeCycle ride was the first time that any American AIDS service organizations had taken it upon themselves to promote and put together a large-scale fund-raising event lasting almost a week without outside help.

The first AIDS/LifeCycle included 670 riders, together with the support of 250 roadies, and raised more than $3 million for its sponsors. The event has steadily grown since then, with last year’s AIDS/LifeCycle, its fourth, including almost 1,600 cyclists and over 400 volunteers and raising almost $7 million.

This year’s ride is expected to include more than 2,000 riders supported by 400 roadies, as well as medical, food and technical support from sponsors. In addition, it is expected to raise more than $7 million for its organizers; money that goes to the charities themselves.

One of the reasons that the rides have been such successful fund-raisers is because each rider raises his or her own money in order to participate. Not unlike other fund-raising events, such as AIDS and cancer walks and runs, each rider is required to raise a minimum amount in order to participate. But unlike other events, the minimum is pretty steep: $2,500 for each rider. Even with that high minimum, many riders raise much more. This has meant that the four previous rides have already raised more that $20 million.

This has also meant that some riders have gone to interesting lengths to raise their money. After all, there’s a limit to how many of your friends you can ask for donations and how much each of them will give, even for a worthy cause. Many riders try different ideas to get a little closer to their fund-raising goal, whether that goal is $2,500 or tens of thousands of dollars. There are bake sales, Super Bowl parties (and betting pools), local business sponsorships, carwashes and bake sales, and any number of creative ways to raise just a little more.

For instance, Dean Cortez, a San Diegan who is riding in his first AIDS/LifeCycle, and the three friends he is riding with, Tony Phipps, John Garrells and Lucas Vitale, spent a night serving at La Taverna Restaurant in La Jolla to raise money.

“[La Taverna Restaurant] donated all the food and we were the wait staff,” Cortez said. “One-hundred percent of the money went to the ride. We raised $3,500 just from that night.”

Raising funds is an important goal of the ride. And whether you know a rider or not, you can donate through the ride’s Web site: www.aidslifecycle.org. But the goals of the ride go beyond just more money for research and treatment. In a time when HIV/AIDS has become so much of an engrained part of the world, and particularly the gay and lesbian community, one of the most important goals of the ride, according to their stated goals, is to raise awareness that AIDS is still devastating our society, particularly the gay community and communities of color in San Francisco, Los Angeles and throughout California.

This is also one of the most important goals for many of the participants. For Cortez, the way that his participation has opened his and other’s eyes to the ongoing struggle with the disease is among the greatest benefits he has seen. Of course, riding down most of the length of California is bound to make an impression on anyone who sees the riders, especially if they happen to see one of the number of riders, roadies or cheerleaders who participate in drag, like Costa Mesa’s Ric Uggen (a.k.a. Ginger Brewlay) who has been a part of every ride since the first of the original rides in 1994 and who, while not riding this time, will be cheering the riders again this year. Even being asked to donate opens a person’s eyes to the continuing presence of HIV/AIDS.

But Cortez, for instance, has seen an even subtler way in which the event causes people to think: through conversation.

“People will ask me ‘How’s your training going?’ and that sparks a conversation and a heightened awareness about HIV,” he said.

So just by being known as riders in the event, people are raising awareness not just about the event but about the very issues it is addressing: the continuing AIDS epidemic, the need for prevention and education, and the ever-increasing need for funds to address it. The importance of raising and maintaining awareness may never have been greater than it is as we mark a quarter century with the disease.

Once the money has been pledged and the riders are as prepared as they can be for their grueling ride, the AIDS/LifeCycle will set off from the Cow Palace in San Francisco at 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, June 4. With stops for lunch and other necessities, the riding continues each day until 7:00 p.m., when the riders have a chance to retrieve whatever gear is being transported for them, get cleaned up, have some dinner, set up their tents and get enough rest to ride again the next morning. The ride averages more than 80 miles a day, reaching Santa Cruz the first night, King City the next night and Paso Robles the third night, then Santa Maria, Lompoc and Ventura, and finally ending up at the West Los Angeles VA Center on Saturday, June 10, where the AIDS Quilt will also arrive.

In the process, the riders and volunteers will go through more than 50 different California towns in eight counties. They will eat almost 3,200 dozen eggs, 10,000 Clif Bars and 2 tons each of chicken and oatmeal, drink 350 gallons of coffee and 550 gallons of milk, and go through 18,000 individual containers of “butt balm.”

With so many people riding, there are bound to be hundreds of reasons people choose to participate as either riders or roadies. Almost everyone in the world, certainly everyone in the gay and lesbian community, has been personally affected in one way or another by HIV/AIDS. So it only makes sense that personal reasons motivate most riders.

For example, Chad Allen, maybe best known for television’s “Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman,” decided to ride after a close friend lost his battle with AIDS.

“I watched him suffer needlessly, thanks to a lack of adequate health insurance and a system of health care that works only for those who can afford it,” Allen said. “In addition, Craig left us believing that his sexuality meant that he deserved to suffer. I vowed that night, as I watched my friend struggle for life, that I would do whatever it takes to prevent even one more person from ever having to die believing they were less than perfect in the eyes of God.”

For many participants, the effects of HIV are even closer to home. This year, as in each of the previous rides, there will be a large contingent of HIV-positive riders and roadies. Some will be riding individually or with groups of friends. Others will be riding as part of Positive Pedalers, a group of HIV-positive riders dedicated both to participating in AIDS/LifeCycle, and similar rides around the country, and to fighting the stigma of HIV through their visibility and example. For some HIV-positive riders, the mere fact of riding is a testament that the disease can be fought.

As Brad Smith, an HIV-positive rider from San Francisco, put it, “By riding in AIDS/LifeCycle, I’m affirming that I’m alive, I’m well and that I’ll fight HIV to the end.”

In addition to raising awareness and money for the fight against AIDS, there are myriad personal reasons people have for riding. There is the very challenge of pushing yourself to the limits of an almost 600-mile bike ride, getting together with a group of friends to go on the ultimate road trip, and also the experience of community.

For Cortez, all of these reasons play a role. “I want to raise awareness and money for education and research,” he said. “But the idea of exercising for a solid week is also pretty great. And I have a group of friends and we’re all doing it together. And, of course, I have many personal friends who’ve been affected by the disease.”

Cortez said there is one more thing he’s hoping to get out of the ride: “I’m looking forward to 2,500 people getting together to do this, to meeting new people, meeting people you might not normally meet, people with different interests, coming together for this cause.”

The money raised from the fifth annual AIDS/LifeCycle will directly benefit the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center’s HIV/AIDS-related services and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, two of the largest and oldest community-based HIV/AIDS service providers in the nation. Both organizations are intimately involved in providing medical and mental health services for those affected by HIV/AIDS, from testing and basic care to advanced care and pharmacy services. They are both also involved in advocacy and prevention, including special prevention programs for at-risk communities, meth users and between positive and negative partners.

Both the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center are involved in projects and programs with statewide, national and international ramifications. For instance, the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center runs the California AIDS Clearinghouse, which is responsible for the development and dissemination of culturally-focused HIV-prevention materials throughout the state of California.

Besides providing information about prevention, testing, treatment and living with HIV through its Web site, www.sfaf.org (and three other Web sites), the San Francisco AIDS Foundation runs a toll-free anonymous and confidential helpline, the California HIV/AIDS Hotline (800-367-AIDS), which answers 70,000 calls a year. It also publishes a journal on experimental AIDS treatment. Through its Public Policy Department and HIV Advocacy Network, the foundation works to secure funding at all levels of government for HIV/AIDS programs throughout the state, and works for better legislation and policy surrounding HIV/AIDS.

For more information about AIDS/LifeCycle, its sponsors, the programs it benefits and ways to donate, as well as photographs of the ride’s progress, visit www.aidslifecycle.org.