Holotta Tymes has ridden the 545-mile AIDS/LifeCycle from San Francisco to Los Angeles so many times, she’s lost count. It’s “either 10 or 11,” she said, “but I’ve actually fundraised 13 times.”
Together with the man she describes as “her other half,” Tymes owns Club 1220, a longtime queer bar in Walnut Creek, which they’ve used as a venue for some prodigious ALC fundraising over the years, bringing in more than $300,000 in total.
Tymes, a drag performer in her 50s, who’s best known for playing the smart-mouthed Sophia in holiday re-enactments of “The Golden Girls,” calls the ALC “the one week of my life I wish the rest of my life was like. Everyone is kind, and they’re there for the right reason.”
But the trek is becoming more difficult as Tymes ages. And, as her cohort of stalwarts gradually bow out, younger riders are not replacing them in sufficient numbers. “We’re losing some of the heart of the ride,” she said.
The most recent ride, which departed from the Cow Palace early on the first Sunday in June, had about 1,400 cyclists, a dramatic dropoff from the approximately 2,500 who rode in 2022. Fewer riders has meant less money for the organizations that depend on the event. Emily Land, a spokesperson for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation — one of two ALC partner organizations, along with the Los Angeles LGBT Center — confirmed that fundraising totals fell to $10.9 million this year, down from $17.8 million in 2022.
This, in turn, has led to staff reductions. AIDS/LifeCycle on Friday laid off six people and eliminated four vacant positions, a significant reduction for a staff that now numbers around 20.
Over the ALC’s 30-year history, regular riders like Tymes have raised money for the fight against AIDS by putting their grief to work, often dedicating their efforts in memory of the friends, partners, “guncles” or entire social circles who were taken from them.
However, with advances in AIDS treatment and prevention, memories of the crisis years are receding. Survivors of the hardest-hit generations are entering their 60s and 70s, and, as Tymes put it, “the younger generation wasn’t alive or old enough to have a clear understanding of the epidemic and doesn’t know anyone who died.”
Public-health experts say the end of the threat to global health is within sight, and the same applies to San Francisco. In 2022, 157 people in the city were diagnosed with HIV, less than 10% of the peak in the early ’90s. In light of this success, the ALC and its two beneficiaries must adapt to a new reality. Four decades and tens of millions of deaths after the first warnings about a “gay plague,” the fight against HIV — in California, at least — may be ending. And with it, a community of riders is gradually coming apart.
‘Now is not the time to give up’
The AIDS/LifeCycle was founded as the California AIDS Ride and was one of many large-scale, endurance-based fundraising endeavors around the country. But the number of such events have dwindled.
“Now there’s only three,” said Tyler TerMeer, CEO of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. He attributes the decline in long-distance rides to the overall success in the fight against HIV and the recognition that a diagnosis is no longer a death sentence. “The more it becomes a long-term illness, the less it’s in the media,” he said.
Changes in corporate giving have also contributed to the ridership drop. Companies like Amazon and Deloitte, which remain strong partners for the foundation’s work throughout the year, now send fewer riders than they did before the pandemic, TerMeer noted. It’s not just the ALC, either: Overall, corporations and foundations no longer prioritize HIV/AIDS as they once did, leading the Journal of Philanthropy to speculate that the “giving crisis” has reached a point of no return. It’s a source of frustration to the organizations working to eliminate the virus once and for all.
“It’s the exact wrong time to leave,” TerMeer said of these aborted efforts. “We need all the support we can to cross that finish line.”
Joe Hollendoner is CEO of the Los Angeles LGBT Center and a former CEO of the SF AIDS Foundation. He echoed TerMeer’s sentiments, observing that the decline in ridership is “consistent with a drop in participation for peer-to-peer fundraising events” throughout the country. “We, like other endurance fundraisers, are struggling to understand why engagement has dropped following the [Covid] pandemic,” Hollendoner said.
However, Hollendoner took issue with the idea that younger generations lack a connection to HIV, when so many LGBTQ+ people take PrEP, or “pre-exposure prophylaxis,” a category of medications that reduce the risk of contracting HIV from sex by as much as 99%. PrEP, which is taken daily in pill form by more than one-third of the population who could benefit from it, reminds people of what’s at stake by keeping them aware of their HIV-negative status, said Hollendoner.
Regardless, ALC community engagement representative Curtis Bass concedes that organizers must do more to communicate to a new generation that the fight against HIV/AIDS is still their fight. “Getting younger folks involved is not easy,” Bass said. “The HIV/AIDS message doesn’t resonate as much with them.”
The ride must go on
Brian Entler, operations manager for a San Francisco law firm, is among the first generation of gay men who never lost anyone to AIDS. Entler, in his mid-40s, started cycling during the Covid pandemic in the hopes of improving his lifestyle and challenging himself. “I didn’t think I was the kind of person who could train and do this,” he said of the ALC. “But I gave it a try — and it turned out to be incredibly rewarding.”
Entler joined New Bear Republic, a group of 145 riders that this year brought in $475,000, more than any other team. A reference to the Sonoma County craft brewery, the name also nods to the bear subculture of big, hairy, gay guys. “We’re the largest fundraisers. No pun intended,” he said. Having ridden with New Bear Republic for the last three years, he’s already registered for 2025.
He appreciates regular traditions like “Red Dress Day,” the flattest and least-strenuous segment of the ride, between Santa Maria and Lompoc, when many riders wear something gaudy or otherwise ill-suited for feats of athleticism. But Entler’s favorite tradition is the rest stop near Ventura Beach on Day 6 that doubles as an open-air dance party.
To him, the ALC is that rare form of queer community-building that’s not centered around consumerism, excessive drinking or evaluating people’s hotness. “I mean, there’s a lot of flirty time on the ride, but it’s not about that,” he said. “It’s about everyone coming together for a common purpose, and it brings out the absolute best in everyone.”
Still, for every new committed rider, there is someone else who has fallen away. One longtime rider groused about a vicious circle in which lower fundraising hauls have led organizers to penny-pinch, resulting in tasteless, condiment-free food and poor-quality shower facilities for riders. Evan Payne, ALC’s director of marketing, acknowledged that the organization “did change catering vendors in 2024 and shower vendors in 2023 in order to help contain costs.”
In spite of this, Payne is untroubled by the broader financial picture. “While we did have fewer riders this year than in 2023 and 2022, our average fundraising remained the same,” he said. “We still averaged around $6,000 per rider. That’s very healthy.”
The ALC is taking steps to diversify the ridership. To attract more people of color and transgender cyclists this year, the organization began a community fund that connects first-time participants with mentors. The effort helped some riders upgrade their bikes and establish training schedules, but it also reflects the reality of new HIV transmissions, which disproportionately affect communities of color. “Cycling is a rich and middle-class white man’s sport. It’s not a cheap sport,” said Bass. “The bike, the clothes — everything’s expensive, and that’s deterred a lot of people from joining.”
It has been a long time since the Castro was full of dying young men and the gay weeklies were essentially chronicles of obituaries. Yet the virus is still circulating, still eluding a vaccine. And the 545-mile adventure on two wheels remains an emblem of the city’s commitment to eradicating the disease.
“We could end the epidemic in our lifetime,” TerMeer said. “We need people to keep HIV at the forefront. We need people to keep riding.”
This story has been updated with clarifying information about corporate support for the SF AIDS Foundation’s mission.