The Empire State AIDS riders and crew will once again (this is the 6th annual ride) start the ride on Sun, 8/10 at the edge of the majestic Niagara Falls (can almost guarantee a gorgeous background rainbow in your photos!) at Terrapin Point, which is in between the American and Canadian Falls. We'll ride through NY wine country, there's a stop at Cooperstown on this year's route, and skirt the Catskills and, on Sat, 8/16 - after triumphantly crossing the mighty Hudson via the George Washington bridge (don't worry, there's a bike trail!) and down to lower Manhattan via the westside bike trail, we'll have the Statue of Liberty as our closing ceremony backdrop, 560 miles later.
This'll be my 3rd Empire State AIDS ride, however I've done fundraising rides for AIDS since 1997 (across Alaska, Montana, WA, Oregon, CA, Idaho, Maryland) and this is the best supported ride I've ever experienced; more importantly, this ride guarantees a minimum 82% will go directly to my team beneficiary: the Breakthrough Fund at the AIDS Research Institute/Univ Calif, San Francisco. The link below provides tons of information for anyone interested in joining our team or donating to our efforts and I'd be happy to provide more info too - just send me a PM.
I'm co-captain of the ARI Breakthrough Riders, and my cycling buddy Tracy and I are pictured on the homepage. We've both lost brothers to AIDS and have been riding for the same reason since '97: to end AIDS in our world. We'd welcome anyone to join us, so that someday soon we can celebrate the successful breakthroughs against AIDS and ride for the pure enjoyment together!
Tailwinds!
Mary

http://empirestateaidsride.org/