The last AIDS/LifeCycle ride ended on Sunday, June 8, 2025, with this year’s group of cyclists celebrating completing the 545-mil ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles in seven days—and the fact that the 2025 ride has raised at least $17,245,239 to benefit the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Los Angeles LGBT Center.
Since its inception in 1994, AIDS LifeCycle brought in over $300 million, with the funds helping raise awareness about HIV/AIDS, directly benefiting many impacted by the disease, and honoring those who have died of AIDS-related causes.
Terry Asten Bennett of Cliff’s Variety was a longtime Roadie for the event and one of the top fundraisers. She was among the volunteers during the 2025 historic final ride. Over the years she has raised at least $56,000.
“In 1981, I was 7 years old,” Asten Bennet shares at her donation page
(https://bit.ly/449UeTC). “But unlike most 7-year-olds, I had a front row seat to the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. I was born and raised in the Castro.
My family’s business is in the Castro. On a daily basis, we saw young men who were vibrant and healthy a week ago, sick and wasting the next, and then gone. Our friends were dying, our customers were dying, our employees were dying. It was all so fast. With the advancement in research and medications, people with AIDS are living long full lives. I never want to see my community dying around me again. This is why I have decided to volunteer my time. I Roadie for my community.”
Her sentiments are shared, in part, by the many other Roadies and volunteers, along with cyclists, who made this fundraiser such a success. It will be missed, but a few other cycling fundraisers are being planned for next year. See the May 22, 2025, issue of the San Francisco Bay Times for more information.
Congratulations to everyone who helped make AIDS/LifeCycle such an important fundraiser as well as a life-changing event not only for participants but also for those impacted by HIV/AIDS who have benefited from the money that was raised.
Learn more about AIDS/LifeCycle: https://bit.ly/43PjIV8
Published on June 12, 2025
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