Life/Cycle experience tests a couple's relationship
They say that the best test of a relationship is a road trip. For Tracy Pitts and Brennan Evans that trip was AIDS Life/Cycle two years ago.
The men are still together and plan to repeat the experience this year.
The Phoenix couple started dating about four years ago, but they had just moved in together when they did the Life/Cycle ride in 2012.
They'd be together 24/7, camping together for the first time, confined in the small tent they pitched after a day on the road.
But the men said the big test came on the worst day of weather during the ride, which goes rain or shine, as they struggled to complete more than 100 miles in a storm.
"It was a relationship tester," Evans remembered. "We joke now that if we can make it through that, we can make it through anything in our relationship."
Pitts had done the ride for the first time two years earlier after learning about the event from friends.
He wasn't the typical candidate for riding hundreds of miles since he had had not previously been a cyclist and was out of shape and smoking.
"Something drew me to it," said Pitts, 45, who works in a dermatologist's office.
"Everyone says it changes your life, but it really does. It literally changed my life. I quit smoking," he said. "There is so much love there. It's something bigger than yourself. After the first one I was hooked."
When Pitts met Evans, the men found they had a common interest in cycling, but Evans didn't know about Life/Cycle.
"He started telling me about this biking experience he had been on," said Evans, 46, who works at the spa at the Fairmount Scottsdale Princess. It appealed to him as a "bucket list" kind of experience. "But I was certainly not in shape to do that type of thing," he said.
To prepare for Life/Cycle this year, the men started training in September, a regimen that includes treks of 60 to 70 miles on Saturday mornings in Carefree and Fountain Hills. They've also trained in Sedona.
"You have to find time to get on the bike," Evans said. "It gives you a lot of time to think."
They also take spin classes a couple of times a week and try to eat better and limit the alcohol consumption.
To raise funds, the men relied on social media and tapped family and friends to help reach a goal of $5,000 each.
It's all worth it to help the cause. Pitts noted that since he came out in 1986 a lot of people he knew have succumbed to HIV/AIDS, including two former boyfriends.
"Anyone who lived through the 1980s and '90s has lost a lot of people," he said.
The message hits home during the ride, which includes a candlelight vigil the night before the final day on the beach in Santa Barbara.
"It's beautiful, solemn, emotional and awe-inspiring," Pitts said.
People who benefit from services funded by the ride volunteer during the event, telling their stories while they work food lines or staff rest stops. During dinner presentations, videos are shown featuring those living with HIV expressing gratitude to the riders.
"It's really infectious for a community of people to do something like this knowing you're benefiting such amazing agencies," Evans said.
"Anybody who wants to do it, be prepared to cry," Pitts advised. "I cried every day the first year."