2004-2008

Excerpts From Stewart Borden’s Ride in 2004

I’m about to hop on my bike again and ride 660km to Montreal as an annual fundraiser for the People With Aids Foundation of Toronto. Before this bike rally existed, the largest fundraiser PWA had was a comedy festival which raised $18,000. This bike rally raises more than $600,000 for PWA. Clearly this bike rally has had an incredible impact on PWA and its ability to deliver services. The big costs of putting the rally on have been covered by some key corporate sponsors (food, powerdrinks, WATER, camp grounds, train tickets back, etc...), so 100% of your donation goes directly to help people with the awful combination of living in poverty AND living with HIV/AIDS. This often means they can’t afford the food or the medication to keep them healthy.

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It’s day three and we’ve made it to Kingston!!!! yeah!!!!!. This was the quickest we’ve made it yet. Everyday we’ve been breaking speed records - mostly because there has been little wind (in any direction). Now, this is good because it’s not blowing against you, but considering it’s over 40 degrees out here a little breeze now and then would go a long way. There are just over 200 riders this year, so needless to say we’ve had our share of accidents, mostly involving trains, well, train tracks at least. My awards that I give out every morning in order to suitably embarass those that deserve it have been going over very well. Geoffrey and Wendy raised $2000 and won the ping pong ball head award for shaving their heads last night to raise money for PWA .

Thank you again to everyone that sponsored me... we raised over $600,000 dollars which I feel is just incredible for a motley crew of riders ( and non-riders like myself).