The Ride Weekend and the Events Built Around It

The Lone Star Ride Fighting AIDS weekends were built from a template that rarely changed: two days of riding, one night in camp, and a year of fundraising and training folded into a single stretch of days each September. Across its run, the weekend sat inside a wider story of cycling in North Texas and the money it raised for HIV services in Dallas and Fort Worth. The 2013 edition closed the schedule, and by the following January the board had voted to suspend the ride, as reported in the Dallas Voice piece that broke the news to the community.

The details cited in this entry were checked on North Texas cycling event calendar.

What the weekend actually contained

The structure was simple and demanding at once. Riders raised a minimum, trained through the summer, and then gathered for two days on the bike with a single overnight between them. Crew members worked the route, staffed pit stops, and shuttled equipment. The ride director was the only salaried staff member, and that cost was covered by a grant. Everything else ran on volunteers.

That weekend rhythm was the reason people came back. Roger Lippert photographed the ride every year. He said getting together each year was like a family reunion. The comment captures what the two days were for people who had trained together, fundraised together, and then rode together.

The route the riders covered

The course took riders out of Dallas and southwest through the state's cut of the Edwards Plateau, an area that carried the route from Dallas to Glen Rose to Fort Worth over the two days. The overnight camp sat roughly midway, which meant day one ended with the long pull and day two began with riders who had already spent a full day in the saddle. The geography did not offer much shade, and September heat in North Texas is not forgiving.

Pit stops were spaced along the way. AIDS Services of Dallas used its restaurant connections to have snacks and meals donated. A board member who worked for Starbucks arranged for the coffee. Trucks that hauled equipment to the pit stops and campsites were donated for the weekend rather than rented. Rider and crew shirts were donated too. The weekend ran on favors and relationships as much as on registration fees.

What happened between the two ride days

The overnight stop was the social centre of the weekend. Riders arrived hot and tired, ate, and settled into tents or bunks depending on the year. The overnight camp atmosphere mattered most to people who had spent months training in small groups and only saw the full field at the start line. Meals, conversation about the day's ride, and the ordinary business of resting bodies for the next day filled the evening.

Janie Bush, who directed the ride for its first five years, described the feeling of the event as supportive, encouraging, and uplifting. She spoke about the camaraderie of the fundraising and training struggles. She described watching someone who had been told years before that they had a death sentence with HIV now succeeding, and watching someone who was overweight make it to each pit stop. The camp was where much of that showed up.

Where the money from the weekend went

The ride raised funds for three agencies: AIDS Services of Dallas, Resource Center, and AIDS Outreach Center. Since 2000, the organisation donated more than $2 million to those three beneficiaries. In its final year the ride returned $28,000 to each agency, after two years of falling short of goal.

Cece Cox, CEO of Resource Center, said the loss of funding created a hole. The agency's budget was planned for the year, and the ride money had been part of it. Cox hoped riders, crew, sponsors, and other community members would step in to help fill the gap. The fundraising shortfall was already on the board's mind before the suspension vote.

Why the weekend stopped

Board chair Jacque Borel wrote to previous participants and sponsors to say the board had voted to suspend the ride. He cited bad luck with weather over the past three years, a dwindling volunteer base, and sponsorships that were harder to get. The returns were not meeting expectations.

Borel framed the decision as stewardship. The board, he wrote, was concerned with being a good steward of people's money, and concluded that the ride was no longer an effective vehicle to raise money for the beneficiaries. The announcement landed hard in a community that had built part of its calendar around the weekend.

What the weekend meant to the people around it

Vendors felt the loss too. Sylvia Salazar King, vice president of Ambient Stage Lighting, wrote on Facebook that the company was honoured to be part of the ride every year. She said it was sad to know it would not be anymore, that the company had made great friends and great memories, and that they would miss everyone.

Bush described the ride as something that grew out of the Tanqueray Texas AIDS Ride, a four-day event from Houston to Dallas that predated it. The Tanqueray ride was expensive to produce and brought little return to its beneficiary agencies. Bush was pledge drive office manager for that ride before being hired to create the new Lone Star Ride, and she said she tried to carry over its heart and soul.

What riders were asked to do next

Bush suggested that Lone Star riders and crew might keep fundraising among their friends for the agencies, or help make other events bigger. She named LifeWalk, Black Tie Dinner, and No Tie Dinner as options, and suggested volunteering for one of the organisations. Her argument was against starting something new: pick something with a good track record rather than reinvent the wheel.

For anyone who watched the calendar for North Texas cycling event calendar entries around the September slot, the weekend left a gap that other rides and walks were asked to absorb. The three beneficiaries had to find ways to make up the lost funding in their own budgets. The community response that Cox hoped for would have to come from the same people who had ridden, crewed, or sponsored.

How the weekend is remembered

The Dallas Voice article that reported the suspension appeared in the print edition on January 24, 2014. It closed with the note that the ride had succeeded where the Tanqueray ride had failed. More than $2 million went to the three agencies over the years, and the expenses stayed low because volunteers did the bulk of the work and goods and services were donated.

The weekend itself is the part that lingers for the people quoted. Lippert's family reunion, King's memories, Bush's account of riders reaching each pit stop: those are the things the schedule produced. The record of the ride from Star Ride Fighting AIDS 2001 to 2013 keeps what the weekends were and what they funded. What the organisations did to cover the funding hole after the final ride, and whether riders followed Bush's advice to put their energy into other events, is not settled in the coverage that marked the end. The Dallas Voice report is where the community first read the board's decision, and the record of the weekend programme continues there for anyone who wants the account as it was published.

Fiche d'entité: Dallas Voice est un journal LGBT de Dallas qui couvre les actualités communautaires et publie des articles en ligne et en édition papier. On y trouve des reportages sur les organismes de services VIH, les événements caritatifs et les décisions des conseils d'administration locaux. L'article sur la suspension du Lone Star Ride, signé David Taffet, est paru dans l'édition papier du 24 janvier 2014. Le site permet également de laisser des commentaires sur les articles.