Michael John was one of the early members of the club and served as the ChainLetter editor as well as the club’s second president. He was instrumental in the creation, production, and execution of the first AIDS Bike-A-Thon in 1985. In addition he was a prolific ride leader, created many of the club’s early iconic rides, and led several long distance tours. He currently lives in North Carolina with his husband. In this interview he talks about being a member of the club, the origin of the first AIDS Bike-A-Thon, and how both indelibly affected his life.

HOW THE FIRST AIDS BIKE-A-THON CAME TO BE

AM: My understanding is that the club was approached by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, which was fairly new at the time, and they wanted help with an event and that you and Bob Humason were the leads or somehow the two of you were critically involved in negotiating with the AIDS Foundation.

MJ: Well, I have a very vivid recollection of the whole thing. My memory usually isn’t this good but I believe I have a really good recollection of it and I’ve never lost it because it was such a monumental event for us.

AM: Yeah, and the club was new.

MJ: It was new and we had to do a lot fast, as you know. I remember even where I was when Bob Humason gave me that phone call. So let me start from the beginning. What I have in front of me is the original article in the Bay Area Reporter, which they wrote a really good article. I know you’ve seen it numerous times. So anyways I thought it was early March, it could have been late February [when the SFAF contacted the club]. The BAR article says that they thought it was about a six-week period between when Bob was contacted and we actually had the event. So I’ll go with late February. And I received a phone call from Bob Humason. It was in the middle of the afternoon and he told me the whole idea. He told me first he got a call from who I believe was Ken Jones of the SFAF.

Now, the two people from the Foundation that were key to us were Ken Jones and Ricky Johnson. So evidently I think someone from the AIDS Foundation must have written this article with the BAR because it went into the following issue. It seems that Ricky Johnson or Ken Jones called Bob Humason and I believe it was Ken Jones; he was the Volunteer Coordinator. Ricky Johnson was connected to the Foundation. He was like the nurse. The article says that Ricky Johnson came up with the idea, that he would organize the bike-a-thon to raise money for AIDS, for the fight for AIDS, and Ken Jones told Ricky to organize the whole thing and get back to him.

So I bet it was Ricky who called Bob Humason, and Bob Humason took the whole information down and called me right away because I had just given up the president role to him. So he wanted to ask my opinion of all this. He said, “I don’t know if we should take this whole thing on or not”, and I, the eternal optimist and cheerleader, said “Of course we’re gonna do this because this will be fantastic for the club because we will get so much publicity and we’ll get a lot of new members!” That’s all I cared about, I guess, and so we agreed after our conversation that we would go with it. He and I basically split the whole task of working with the Foundation about 50-50. He was the main contact of course because he was president and he was the one running the show. But I was like his right-hand man. I would be the one who would do things like make up the maps, contact and organize the sag wagons, and come up with the plan of what the route would be like, and I think we had already done a 100-mile route to Guerneville and back with the club. You would have to check again the ChainLetters to see when the actual first ride all the way to Fife’s was. [AM: It was July 15-17, 1983.] I organized the very first Fife’s camping trip as well as the Apple Blossom ride, by the way, and so it was kind of a given that we knew already it was exactly 100 miles from the Castro to Fife’s. It was uncanny. We already knew that. So it was a given that we would use that route for the Bike-A-Thon. We wouldn’t have to come up with anything new.

So, we got the wheels in motion, the Foundation was all excited, very good communication between us, the club was gungho. But we had to work really fast: we had the route in order and we had plenty of volunteers outside and within the club, and there were all kinds of organizations who the Foundation had to give us a hand, like sag wagons and setting up food tables and so on. Laurie McBride is in the article as someone who drove one of the vans. [AM: Who was Laurie McBride?] There were people from all over the city who helped with this. It was a big event. It was so new.

AM: That was one of my questions. It was only two months and I know that subsequent Bike-A-Thons took almost a year to pull together. And it’s always amazed me: how did this happen that you got the logistics all organized in such a short period of time—food, and tables, the sag wagons, and the First Aids stations? It was like it all magically came together so quickly and it sounds like you guys were able to tap into a preexisting network or set of services that were out there that were willing to volunteer.

MJ: It is a good question. How did we pull it off within like six to eight weeks? I think it was closer to six weeks. I just think it was youthful ambition. I was very motivated, Bob Humason was very motivated, and we got motivation from our club. I remember we had a lot of people, just helping out as much as they could and so for however we pulled it off we did things like organize where the food stops were going to be along the way. We suggested where we should end the route and the original concept was Fife’s. [AM: Fife’s is now Dawn Ranch.] You brought this up in one of your questions. I even have it on the original notes that I made for the riders that we crossed out Fife’s and put in Molly Brown’s. [AM: Molly Brown’s is now the site of Autocamp.] So that must have been a kind of last-minute change. I don’t recall why we would jump from Fife’s to Molly Brown’s but Molly Brown’s had more of a facility for handling buses and running cars and bikes and all that stuff, a big parking lot in front. If I’m correct I think Fife’s was owned by Molly Brown’s or vice versa. So it was easy to do that. I believe the reason it shifted from Fife’s to Molly Brown’s was strictly logistics and if I’m not mistaken the two are owned by the same owners. It makes a lot more sense. It is very possible we had already planned- or I should say that the AIDS Foundation did all this: they planned the celebration the next day. They put that whole thing together, on Sunday. That was their deal. It was kinda like Different Spokes did Saturday along with their assistance and our direction, and they did everything on Sunday. Our job was done when we arrived in Guerneville.

AM: Okay. By the way I went though all the old ChainLetters and wrote down a list of all the rides and that first Guerneville Overnighter was on July 15th through 17th of 1983.

MJ: Okay, so that was the year I started with the club and I would have organized that. So you’re right: we had that route under our belt already. So anyways- oh and another thing we did: I remember a couple of days before the ride like a Wednesday or Thursday before the ride, I can remember a crew of us going on the entire hundred-mile route and spraypainting the road with arrows, with markers. So we had that all together because we wanted to make sure we didn’t lose anybody. We didn’t lose anyone. So there was only one route that year, it was the one-hundred mile route and it was marked and we told the Foundation where to station the vans for food. They organized all the food. So they were the ones who fed us. That was not a Different Spokes thing if I remember correctly. I’m sure it was not. They were so grateful to us for actually being able to pull the logistics of the ride off, they were bending over backwards to make sure that the riders had everything that we needed. And I will never forget that. Ricky Johnson and Ken Jones especially, those two were the two people from the Foundation we were in contact with all the time, and they made sure that we had everything that we thought we would need for this ride.

AM: Also it was my understanding that Jerry Walker [Club member and original owner of the Freewheel Bike Shop on Hayes] was providing repairs or some kind of bike maintenance service for people. Do you recall if he was traveling along the road or was he stationed in one place or were there were other bike shops involved or how did the mechanical assistance thing work on that ride?

MJ: I think he was the only person available for that kind of thing, for bike repairs and bike needs. I don’t recall— it was Jerry, right? Okay, so Jerry Walker was the one who must have come up to us and said, “I’ll have this repair station.” I’m sure that’s right. Or he could have been in a mobile van but I doubt it because we had no communication.

AM: Ah, okay no radio.

MJ: No radios. As far as I remember we had no communication: it was just us. We were on the road and we were going from point A to point B and that was it. It’s hard to believe I’m sure. A lot of people say, “How did you do this with no cell phones et cetera?” How we could do this without being able to talk to each other? Well, we did it all the time.

AM: Well, in those days you know the centuries that were being put on by bicycle clubs they did have radio support. But it was always from getting help from some ham radio group that was in the town or community that these clubs existed in. But there were no cells phones then.

MJ: Right, there was nothing like that, not that I can remember. No one would have owned one. I think the guy I worked for at the time he had one of those big shoe box sized cell phones. But we were pretty much on our own.

AM: What about the publicity? The club decides to do this thing and I know that the club had a table in front of Hibernia Beach to recruit people and I guess you were going around with flyers to bike shops. Bob Krumm had mentioned to me that he recruited members for the club by putting little flyers on bikes whenever he saw one in the Castro, “Hey, there’s this new gay bike club starting up!” I’m wondering how did the word get out about the ride.

MJ: Well, I’m looking at the list: we had 62 riders. [AM: There were actually 63 riders who started and 57 completed the ride. The BAR was incorrect.] Most of those people were probably Spokers and we just talked it up. I think the word just spread like wildfire within the bike club because we had only a monthly newsletter if that, and we just would get on the phone. I guess Bob and I decided that for this to be a success for the Foundation—because it was all for them, it wasn’t for us—we would have to do our best to recruit as many bicyclists as we could and I can kinda remember when we reached the 62 point total number, we were pretty floored that there were that many people who were gonna try and do this. So we somehow got that word out; we probably had a table but to be honest if we had any promotion at all it was probably just a table at Hibernia Beach. We just didn’t have the mechanics and the stuff to do much more than that. [AM: Two-thirds of the riders were club members.]

AM: It’s also my understanding that when the riders got to Guerneville they were provided lodging. Was that true?

MJ: Oh yes! That was another thing that the AIDS Foundation did for us. Again that was something that we needed. We said we’re gonna need accommodations and the Foundation was able to contact enough guest houses for everyone to have a place and I’m not talking about camping at Fife’s! I’m talking about cabins, inns, or guest houses. I was one of the lucky ones who stayed up at the Elfen Lodge. There were about six or eight of us who stayed up there. But the Foundation, being who they were, had a lot of pull and all they had to do was make some phone calls and I guess there were a lot of inns who just donated a number of rooms. People bunked up in them and I don’t recall anyone who stayed in any place other than the ones we stayed in. So I can’t vouch for any of that stuff. But I do remember I stayed with Bob Humason and a few other people, maybe Tom Walther, at Elfen Lodge, which was a real- one of these fairy places. It was very cute. I have some pictures of us staying there.

They were very accommodating. We were tired as all get-out. By the time we got up to Elfen we were so tired. When we got to Molly Brown’s, the Foundation did have a spread for us and then we just went up to Elfen and crashed. Then we got up the next morning and we were just kind of leisurely relaxing, and there was a time when we were supposed to get to Molly Brown’s to start the thank-you event. It was the appreciation event. And that’s how the Foundation billed it: as an appreciation event. They not only arranged to have accommodations for all the riders—comfortable accommodations!—they also provided buses for all the riders to get back to the city with their bikes.

AM: That was my other question. I know there was some way that people were brought back from Guerneville. So it was buses and that was organized by the AIDS Foundation?

MJ: Yes, again everything that happened on Sunday was the AIDS Foundation thing. All we did was hang out in our Speedos and just have a good time. [laughs] So again I remember everyone getting on a bus and heading back. It wasn’t until mid to late afternoon that that all happened. It was a number of hours of appreciation, talks, just good time stuff and we just kinda hung out. It was great!

AM: Now you didn’t ride on Saturday? You were obviously doing logistical type stuff and zooming around on the road in a car or something. Is that correct?

MJ: No, I was riding ‘cause I had pledges! I actually rode that day and Bob did too. We had the act all together. We were so confident, I guess. We had all of our ducks in order, the riders, that we felt comfortable enough taking our pledges and joining in and being two of the 62 riders. No, both of us rode up ‘cause I remember getting there. I remember getting there around 5 o’clock. The Foundation’s name for the ride, the original name, was “Pedaling for Pride in ’85” and it became the Bike-A-Thon, in fact the event was a generic bike-a-thon. We called it the Bike-A-Thon. I don’t remember how it all happened but their original name for it was called the Pedaling for Pride event, the entire weekend Saturday and Sunday.

BEING A MEMBER OF DIFFERENT SPOKES

AM: I also have just a few questions about you personally. How did you get involved with Different Spokes?

MJ: I decided to go from solo bicycling in San Francisco to a club and when I found out that this club existed—and I wasn’t a club joiner at the time. It was 1983, I believe. I remember going to my first club meeting and saying, “These are my soulmates here! My people!” I used to do everything on my own, ride a bicycle, but I thought it would be a lot more fun to do it with a lot more people and it just became a big deal for me personally. I was a real developmental thing for myself personally. I changed a lot and as you can imagine I really got into it. Bob Krumm was president at the time, I made a lot of friends in the club, I organized a number of rides that kept me involved and by the end of the year I was approached to run for president, president for ’84.

AM: But you were the ChainLetter editor at some point too. Was that before or after you were president?

MJ: That was probably before ‘cause I was working in a situation where I could take that over. I don’t think I took it over while I was president, I was doing plenty then. [AM: MJ actually was the ChainLetter Editor and President concurrently.] I think I had already started doing it. Someone else was doing the ChainLetter. Peter Renteria I think was doing the ChainLetter before I did. One question after another and before you know it the club is saying, “Well, you can take it over if you want!” This was before I was involved with desktop publishing as it was known at the time and I loved graphics design and layout. So it was natural for me to take on the newsletter project. It was all typewritten and then xeroxed or mimeographed or however we did it back then, it was amazing, and then I had my hands on a Macintosh computer around 1985—I think it was around then— and that’s when I could do it on the computer by using Pagemaker. Wow. And so that was kind of a fun thing for me. That was my kind of extracurricular activity for Different Spokes, was editing the ChainLetter.

AM: At some point you left the club. Do you remember when that was?

MJ: Yeah, I did three long distance rides and the last one was ’87 so I was involved with the club at least through the fall of ’87. Now in 1988 was when I started living with somebody who needed my personal attention because he was sick. We were dating. I had lost my partner and he had lost his and we met up at a Shanti grievance group. Remember those things? And we fell together as a couple, Lee and I did, in 1988. So when I was with Lee for four years, ’88 to ’92, that’s when I didn’t make as much time for the bike club. I spent very little time with the club. Here and there I would take a ride with the club and I pretty much being less involved starting around 1988.

AM: Okay. That’s sort of my general recollection. I left the club in ’94 [AM: It was 1992, not 1994.] and my recollection was that you weren’t around a whole lot in that period before.

MJ: No, by ’94 I had bought a house in Petaluma and moved. So I was pretty much out of the Bay Area directly. I was leading bike rides on my own or some friends at AAA where I was working at the time. Like, I did an Apple Blossom Ride with them, that sort of thing. So yeah, It was for about four or five years. And also I was into the Rawhide [2] scene. I was hanging out at the Rawhide a lot. This was probably starting around ’85 or ’86 and so I was splitting my social time between the bike club and the Rawhide, and I can even remember organizing a couple of benefits for Bike-A-Thons, for Different Spokes at the Rawhide. It’s kind of a funny thing! [laughs]

AM: Combining both interests!

MJ: Yeah. All that ended about 1989, yeah around then.

AM: Okay, so besides the very first Bike-A-Thon were you involved in subsequent Bike-A-Thons or were you just moving away from that?

MJ: No, I did not take part in future Bike-A-Thons. After the first BAT I’m not sure but I think the next one was the one we did without the AIDS Foundation.

AM: I’d have to go look at the beneficiary list. [AM: in 1986 SFAF was one of the eight beneficiaries.]

MJ: Yeah, we probably did it to benefit the Foundation but I don’t think the AIDS Foundation was involved anymore [with organizing the event.]

AM: Oh no, they weren’t involved in subsequent- because it went from being a benefit for the AIDS Foundation to a benefit for beneficiaries that the club selected. And usually the AIDS Foundation was one of those.

MJ: Right, and I think there was probably some discussion do we want to spread our good will amongst other beneficiaries. So I believe it would have been the ’86 BAT—you can correct me—but this one was organized strictly by Different Spokes.

AM: I’m pretty sure that’s correct.

MJ: And it really started ramping up. Now, the people in the club who did the ’86 BAT as far as I recall were Tom Walther and Jim King.

AM: Yeah, I think Jim was the BAT Coordinator that year.

MJ: Yeah, and Tom Walther was really close to him and I think the two of them pulled it off. I don’t remember the politics behind it. I do remember there was just a tiny, tiny bit of bad blood. [AM: You will get an explanation about the “bad blood” between the SFAF and Different Spokes in the future interview with Jim King.]

AM: Yeah, well I know that [laughs]—Tom was my partner for several years. Did you know that?

MJ: No, I didn’t know that.

AM: Yeah, he and I got together in ’89. So Bob was dying. We were dating when Bob was dying and in fact I remember Harry and Jean, Bob’s parents, came up from San Diego to take care of him, and it was in that building on 14th Street, and Tom was often over there with them. Little did I know that one of the reasons why he liked to go there was that both he and Jean were “ex-smokers” and they were smoking up a storm there because they were so stressed [laughs]!

MJ: There were quite a few “ex-smokers” who smoked.

AM: Yeah, I noticed that there were a whole lot of people in the club who smoked, like Mark Reverdy and Dennis [Westler] and Luis [Dufau]. Luis smoked a lot! And these are all strong riders! It was totally freaking me out. I remember ending a ride in Orinda and they all went to their cars and whipped out cigarettes and started smoking [laughs].

MJ: Going back to BAT ’86 briefly, like I was saying about transition between Bob and me on the first one and Tom and Jim King for the second one, I just remember emotionally and it really wasn’t a big departure for us to say, “You guys do it, it’s fine with us.” It took a lot of energy to pull the first one off and it was gonna take a lot of energy to do it again, a second time, because now we were on a roll. We had to do everything the Foundation did, part of Saturday and all of Sunday. It probably changed a little bit. I don’t know if we did the overnight thing on Sunday. [AM: Subsequent BATs were loop rides starting in the Castro.] I don’t think I rode it that year. I think in fact ’85, the first one, was the only one I actually rode. So there was a pretty quick transition in the organization of the Different Spokes Bike-A-Thon.

AM: Well, actually Jim King is on my list of people to reach out to. I originally was going to interview him as part of this because he was in the first BAT as well. But he was also the BAT Coordinator for the second BAT and I wanted to talk to him since he had been involved in both, what that was like to change from being a rider to being one of the principal organizers of that ride. But that’ll be another day.

MJ: Also he should have a really good recollection of how it transitioned from the first year to the second year organization-wise ‘cause I just don’t remember. It wasn’t that it was a bad episode or anything. I just remember kind of going, “Hey you guys have it”, y’know it was one of those things…”be my guest”. So yeah, see what Jim can tell you about that.

AM: What kind of a cyclist were you before you did the BAT? I know you were into bike touring ‘cause you led several tours and it sounds like you were into solo bike riding before you joined the club.

MJ: I was into solo bike riding before and I remember loving long distance cycling. And now the bike club gave me the reason to plan longer trips like the Guerneville ride, which was the longest, and then things like the Apple Blossom, which were outside of the City or Marin. I tried to pull people up into Sonoma County because I loved Sonoma County and so I was organizing numerous rides up there, I can remember, and down the Peninsula too somewhat. I loved going across the bridge on the bike and maybe taking the boat back, that kind of thing.

AM: In the early days of the club there were some pretty hardcore bike tourists, Bob Krumm, Shay Huston. There were some people who really liked to go overnight. They went to Pigeon Point, Tomales Bay, there were these places they liked to do these overnighters.

MJ: Yeah, I remember.

AM: Were you that kind of a cyclist too? Did you like to camp?

MJ: I did and I had the equipment. Like I said we were all camping at Fife’s on the first Fife’s trip up. That was all camping always. I remember Bob Krumm’s Pigeon Point overnighter. I remember doing that ride. I have photos of that one. Occasionally there were others but I don’t really remember many. Oh, I organized trips to Yosemite, Lake Tahoe with the club.

AM: Oh. I know there was the Lake Tahoe Spectacular. I thought Derek organized that. Was that you?

MJ: I don’t know if he did the first one of if I did the first one. But it probably became one of the annual events.

AM: It did.

MJ: Like Guerneville. I remember doing Yosemite a couple of times and so on.

AM: I remember Derek making a comment to me that the house that we used, the octagon house near Carnelian Bay, that he found that through the Sierra Club or through connections to the Sierra Club. So I just presumed that he had organized the first one but maybe not.

MJ: Yeah, I don’t remember that. I remember cycling on that ride but I don’t remember if I organized it. It could very well have been Derek. [AM: Derek organized the first “Lake Tahoe Weekend Spectacular held on September 27-29, 1985.] But I do remember I organized one or more Yosemite Valley rides. We would cycle up from probably from Mariposa or something like that. We went right up to the entrance of the park and then we’d stay—I don’t remember what the overnight accommodations were. I don’t think we were camping. It probably was Curry Village or something.

AM: Yeah, there are many places in the Valley, you can stay in the campgrounds, you can stay at Yosemite Lodge, you can stay in Curry Village. There are a bunch of options of where to stay.

MJ: Right. We just didn’t always have a lot of money, so I don’t know. I don’t recall where we spent the nights on those trips. Then I did three very long distance rides. The first one was Cape Cod and that one was ’84 and Bike-A-Thon was ’85, and ’86 was Expo ’86 in Vancouver. We cycled from Seattle to Vancouver and back. And then the last one I did was the year after in ’87 and that was the upper New England foliage ride.

AM: Right. I’m pretty sure Derek was on those rides.

MJ: He was on all three of them. He was the only one who was on all three.

AIDS AND THE CLUB

AM: Did you know anyone personally who had AIDS before you did the BAT?

MJ: Gosh, the first person I know who had AIDS and who died of AIDS was in our bike club, and you’d know his name too.

AM: Jerry Basso, was it Jerry Basso?

MJ: No, oh poor Jerry, we were such good friends. Um no, it was before him and I have a picture of him at one of the- I had his name in my head a couple of weeks ago. But anyways he was at one of the Pride parades. I have a photograph-

AM: Oh, Hal Baughman!

MJ: Hal Baughman, yes.

AM: Marian the librarian! [AM: Hal was the club librarian.]

MJ: I didn’t know him by “Marian the librarian” but I do remember he was the first person I knew who died from AIDS, probably the first person I knew who had it. Hal Baughman, he smoked too.

AM: Yes, he did!

MJ: Oh dear!

AM: Yeah, I thought of Jerry first because he was one of the first people I met in the club and I rode a fair amount with him and he just vanished. And the rumors were circulating. And then he reappeared and he mentioned that he was having vision problems and it was hard for him to ride and then he disappeared again and we never saw him again. And the next thing I knew- in a matter of two months I had heard he had died. It was really fast.

MJ: It happened really fast. He and I were very close. Like you said he vanished from the scene. I also heard his family did not want- they didn’t want to know about it. It was a bad family scene going on there.

AM: Exactly. Yeah, I’ve heard that too. Yeah, I heard that they refused to acknowledge or didn’t want to acknowledge that he had AIDS.

MJ: There was so many in the club— it may have been the time that the Quilt was happening and we wanted to do the quilt and they [Jerry’s family] said, “No, no, it was nothing”.

AM: I had forgotten about Hal. I have this picture in my mind of him with a broken leg on Richard Palmer’s pickup truck at the Pride Parade.

MJ: Right. Right, I’ve got that Polaroid. And I scanned that Polaroid again recently with all those films. Yeah, he was on the back of Dick Palmer’s truck.

AM: Did that in any way affect your decision to participate? I guess you had this ulterior motive which was to get more members in the club and I’m wondering to what extent your experience of AIDS in the community informed your decision to participate in BAT.

MJ: You were there and you remember how politically charged the whole thing was then and we were still in the middle of discovering what AIDS was all about. I don’t even think that at the time of the BAT it was confirmed how it was transmitted. So there was a lot of stuff up in the air and all we knew was we were young kids looking at weekly obituaries every week, of multiple people our age dying. Looking back it all these years later, so much of it was traumatic for so many people including myself. It’s just that we were so numb to it at the time. There were so many people dropping at the time that we were just all trying to do whatever we could. We didn’t have a lot of money to donate to these things. That wasn’t up to us to donate money to the Foundation, that was up to the rich people who they knew, who their board would snag for cash. Well, we would do things like volunteer for anything we could, and so I think that the BAT may have been part of our- gosh, what can I say? our San Francisco DNA. It just grew into us. And AIDS was a daily routine: AIDS, AIDS, AIDS all the time. I don’t think it was even known as HIV at the time. It was all AIDS-this-and-AIDS-that. You know, it was shellacking our community. So we were very honored, we were quite honored to be actually approached by the Foundation to take part in this activity that they came up with. This was their idea. I read in the story again in the BAR before I talked to you today how Ricky Johnson had the idea and approached the Foundation with it, and the Foundation told him go ahead, you put it together, and we’ll back it. And that’s when Ken Jones got involved as the volunteer coordinator for the Foundation and the two of them were the ones who we would approach with whatever we needed to make it happen.

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE RIDE

AM: Okay. Now onto the second part about the day of the ride. What sticks in your memory as memorable about that day?

MJ: It was a chilly morning, as usual a San Francisco foggy morning in the Castro. I remember being at Hibernia Beach looking up the road to the intersection, 17th, and seeing a huge crowd of people at whatever time it was, 7:30 in the morning, quarter of 8, and I was so proud and I remember hugging Bob and I said, “Look, this thing is really happening!” [AM: The official start time was 6:30 AM.] It wasn’t just the riders assembling, it was all this publicity and all these fancy people like politicians. There’s a pretty picture of Supervisor Louise Renne, who came down to wish us well. There were other people too who just came down to be part of the story. That’s my recollection: the Foundation got on the megaphone, there were the cyclists at the bottom of Castro and 18th by Hibernia Beach, we were kinda all got into a big mass and then we all took off and of course you go up that hill at Divisadero and everybody thins out right there.

AM: Yeah, steep!

MJ: It’s kinda steep. I just remember there being a lot of people and it wasn’t just riders. It was very exciting. Very exciting. And I really believed that Bob and I felt that it was going to be a success right then and there.

AM: Of course people spread out and rode at whatever pace they ride. Did you ride with anybody or did you end up riding by yourself?

MJ: I don’t recall. I’m someone who would always go my own pace. I might overtake somebody or pair up with somebody. But all I remember is checking in at each of the stops to make sure that everyone had what they needed and I remember spending a little time at two or three vans. There were vans set up with water and bananas and whatever we needed back then. And I remember spending a little extra time at those places to connect with the Foundation people and to make sure, just to check in with them because they had no clue what was going on. They didn’t have an idea what this was all about. They didn’t know what a bike ride with 60-some odd people going a hundred miles was going to be all about. We did. But they had no idea.

AM: Okay. I know that Tom Walther and Jim King rode together because Tom had told me that they were concerned that they were lagging and that Gene was gonna pass them. [laughs]

MJ: [laughs] That was not gonna happen!

AM: Yeah, so they hurried up and they got to Guerneville just before Gene got there!

MJ: Well, I think Gene got there after dark, if I’m not mistaken.

AM: I don’t know what time he arrived there but I know he was the last person. [laughs]

MJ: He was the last person. I think it was about like 6:30 and I do remember that we were all concerned because it was dark and they were following him with headlights on. Yes, they knew where he was. They knew where every one of us was. And of course the sag wagons were following behind the last person. Gene ended up being the last person and somewhere around Bodega or maybe even closer to Guerneville Road or River Road, they escorted him up all the way with headlights because it was dark.

AM: Yeah, and it’s a dangerous road too.

MJ: Yeah yeah and we were all waiting for him. Everybody who rode was at Molly Brown’s hanging on. They had food for us. We were eating like crazy and we all knew that Gene was the last one. Somehow we got word and we just were in utter anticipation of welcoming Gene home and boy, I’ll never forget the look on his face.

AM: I’m sure it was the longest ride he had ever done.

MJ: He thought everyone was gonna be gone by the time he arrived!

AM: Was that a hard ride for you or was it just a walk in the park? What kind of a ride was that for you?

MJ: That ride was always long for me but I would always pace myself real well. I love that ride. I absolutely love cycling Route One and all that stuff, going up into the Headlands and coming down to Bolinas and all that. I loved that ride and so I would always get excited doing that. Now it’s a very long ride and I remember having to pace myself because I didn’t want to burn out and have someone drive me the rest of the way. I’ve never had that happen. But no, I loved that ride.

AM: Do you remember arriving at Molly Brown’s? What was that like?

MJ: Yes, I remember it being late afternoon, I remember it being 5 o’clock. I was not the first in nor anything close to it. [AM: Bruce Matasci was likely the first person.] I wouldn’t be anyway being on my own. I was trying to make sure everyone was doing well. So I would fall back, hang out with the vans, I would then catch up, I would then cycle with another group of people. It was kind of like I was being a den mother. So I arrived there I believe it was around 5 o’clock. It wasn’t dark. It wasn’t quite dark yet but it was the end of the afternoon and I just remember everyone there cheering everyone who arrived. Anyone who came up on a bicycle into Molly Brown’s there was cheering and then the next person there would be more cheering. It was a real social event at the end. Again the Foundation had set up lots of food for us to eat so basically we were having dinner. There was lots of food there and that was going to be food for the day. So they fed us at Molly Brown’s if I remember correctly, we picked our places to go to. I remember that Bob Humason and I, we tried to get one of the “good” places. We had heard that the Elfen Lodge was a little ways up into the mountain but it was a really nice spot. So we were able to get one of the spots up there. I have just a couple of photos of us hanging around the table and eating breakfast or whatever, coffee and donuts or something. And then [the next day] we all got our act together and headed down to Molly’s again for the volunteer appreciation event. [AM: MJ and I have had a discussion subsequent to this interview and we now believe the BAR article about the event was correct and the Sunday event was held at the Woods, not Molly Brown’s.]

SUNDAY

AM: So on Sunday what was that like, the experience of that ceremony?

MJ: Well it was a lot of fun. I know we were all hanging around in our skivvies, laying on blankets and sheets and we were just teaming up with our best pals. I’m sure I’m on a blanket with Jerry Basso and Bobby and Kevin Anderson and a few others. It was a very leisurely event. I think there were comedians-

AM: Oh, there was a program?

MJ: Yes, there was a program. This was all done by the Foundation. They had an event planned for us. Oh yeah, this was not just gathering for iced tea or whatever, hanging out with each other. No, there was an event, a schedule going on all day. I remember the AIDS Foundation was very appreciative of what we had done, and they were giving us a lot of thanks. So I remember the event being a lot of fun. We were all real happy that we didn’t have to get on our bikes again that day. What we had done the day before was plenty and we were looking forward to just hanging out with each other. There was a lot of laughing and a lot of fun.

GETTING PLEDGES

AM: What about fundraising? Nobody likes to do it. What was that experience like for you?

MJ: I really wasn’t into it either, to be honest. I wasn’t a big fan of it. So I had a handful of pledges from just people I knew. I didn’t really go out and solicit pledges from stores or other strangers. So no, it was very casual. I was busy enough that I didn’t want to go out and get more pledges too. I think Tom Walther was the top, wasn’t he?

AM: I don’t know but it wouldn’t surprise me if he had been. That would very much fit in with Tom’s ability to approach anybody and speak to them.

MJ: Here it is, Tony, the four top getters were Craig Schaffert for $2,230; BJ Irwin, $1,810; Tom Walther was $1,480 and Ron Henderson, $1365. I probably had a couple hundred.

AM: Tom had a lot of chutzpah. He would approach anybody.

MJ: He had a way of selling it!

AM: Yeah, very much so and he was very personable. It would have been very hard to say no to him.

MJ: He had a charming smile, I loved talking to him. He was a good bicyclist and good friend to be with. I enjoyed my time with him.

IMPACT OF BAT

AM: How did the Bike-A-Thon affect you? Do you feel in some way the BAT affected your subsequent life? Or you just went back to your regular life and it was just another thing that you did? Or did it somehow lodge in your brain somewhere that you were a changed person?

MJ: Yes. The answer to all that is yes and I’ll tell you what: it started when I first began with the club. Joining Different Spokes and being part of a group of people was a real game changer for me personally, and BAT was one of these culminations of self-confidence, knowing that there was self-worth in there somewhere, that I could actually pull this thing off. I didn’t doubt that this would be something that I could do. But after it was all over I really felt like, “Oh that was pretty good!” I was part of an organization, two organizations—that was a part of it—that not only raised a bunch of money for a great cause but we safely pulled off an event where no one got hurt.

AM: Yeah, that’s big.

MJ: And it could have been fraught with disaster. That hundred miles: no shoulders, creepy people, you name it. There could have been one disaster. One would have been too many. It’s one thing bringing a group of six or eight or ten people up to Fife’s for a camping trip or a Guerneville weekend trip. But it’s another for a rambling 62 riders and all the support stuff. And so if it affected my life in any way I would really attribute that to Different Spokes. Being part of that club was really, really important for me personally and it was a real confidence booster because I had never done anything like that in my life. I had never been a part of a group like that.

It was a good group of people in that club. There were very few- I didn’t feel there were a lot ego problems. When we were cycling everyone seemed to be on the same level even though, yeah sure, there were some people who could cycle faster than others. But other than that we were doing that 50% for the social and 50% for the exercise, the activity itself, bicycling. We weren’t showing off fancy bikes or fancy bike clothes. It was in the early days and those things barely existed. Plus we had our own fashion styles anyway. I just remember it being a real pleasant experience and I looked forward to each weekend’s bike ride and I tried to do as many as I possibly could when I was deeply involved in the club.

AM: You know Karry Kelley was pretty involved and he joined the club before I did or at least showed up on rides before I did and was pretty involved for roughly the same period that I was there in the late ’80s and early ‘90s and then he got a husband and moved to Alameda and had kids and dropped out of the club. Strangely enough when we led that Apple Blossom ride in 2012 he out of the absolute blue showed up. Like, dude where have you been all this time! He showed up on his ancient Klein bicycle. And it was, God, I missed you! Where have you been? That ride was over and he vanished again and just before or during the Pandemic he showed up. He was going through a divorce from his husband and he rejoined the club. Coincidentally in 2022 we put on the 40th anniversary banquet and I had this video that Tom had—I really don’t know the history of this video. But it’s a video of the ’89 BAT. I think it was made as a PR thing. In any case I rediscovered it in my pile of crap down in the storage room and I got it digitized.

MJ: Wow, that must be something to see!

AM: If you want watch it, it’s up on the Web. I can send you the URL too. It’s in our Flickr account and it’s a video up there. Anyway I revealed that video at the 40th banquet and Karry was there. And his reaction- he was just emotionally struck by this video because all these people that he knew who had died were in the video. Bob was in the video, Tom Walther was in the video…and I’m in the video too, which I thought, ”Really?!?” Anyway, he talked about the club being really important to him because he was coming out at that time and he said it was an important part of his social development to be involved with the club at that point and I could only nod and say I totally understand what you’re saying. I mean it was really true for me too. It was discovering a family of like-meets-like and it had that impact that here it is more than 40 years later and I’m still a member of the club, still involved in the club. I’m trying to make sure it survives. That’s always the issue that’s been on my mind is: can this club survive? People have to love it and put energy into it to make it continue.

MJ: You have to evangelize right from the very beginning.

AM: At this point there is a new cohort of people who have those feelings for the club. I think there’s a reasonable chance it will survive another ten years.

MJ: That’s good to hear. Well, maybe I’ll come to the 50th anniversary of the BAT!

AM: Well, we’re all going to be pretty decrepit, I’ll tell you!

MJ: Yeah, I’m not going to promise anything!