On bicycling in a group

(One of five essays commissioned by the Minneapolis Star Tribune about the Twin-Cities-To-Chicago AIDS Ride, April 13 1997 )

Last year's AIDS Ride was the first organized sporting event I'd willingly participated in since a brief stint on the ninth grade basketball team at Chisago Lakes Junior High. I was a scrawny kid with glasses, and after two sobering weeks of practice I quit the team, citing lack of time.

I was one of the legions of kids whose squeezable egos bore the deep thumbprint of competitive athletics.

Phy ed was the bane of my academic career. The geeky outfits and the demoralizing comparisons of performance, the embarrassment of the showers and the locker room swagger so indecipherable to this kid who didn't yet know he was gay - phy ed was my daily rendezvous with dread, and I used whatever device I could to get out of it.

It was with an understandable hesitation that I approached my decision to participate in last year's AIDS Ride. I knew this wasn't a competitive event, but I sometimes felt the intrusion of that old need to prove something, and my training was at times motivated by a determination not to embarrass myself.

During the ride I was struck by the amazing diversity represented in our happy band: teenagers and senior citizens, couch poatoes and chiseled bodies, and no shortage of slight thirtysomethings with glasses. Gone was the homogeneity of phy ed and the conformity it demanded.

There were serious biker types who roared out of the gate at 6 a.m., tore up the 100 miles and arrived in camp before noon. I was not one of these.

There were the ones who brought up the other end of the line, huffing and chugging into camp at the last possible minute, welcomed each night by long lines of cheering riders and crew.

And me? I found myse!f in very good company in the vast but distinguished middle, setting out at a reasonable hour each morning, stopping to read the historical markers along the way, taking a minute to chat and stretch at each pit stop, enjoying the feeling of being part of a larger collaboration.

We were a single organism of more than 2,000 people inching our way over nearly 500 miles of terrain. Our task was not to compete but to cohabit, to function as a productive community.

Riding single file on rural highways, we relied on each other's steadiness and communication. Eating, sleeping and bathing together for a week, we relied on each other's good sense and good humor. And sitting together listening to music as the summer night fell, we caught maybe a glimpse of what a community should be and, if we dare to dream, what phy ed should become.