Participant Profile: shae byer
“Don’t be afraid to ask questions, because this is new for you [first-year participants]. If you have questions about camping, training, clothing, ask! People love to give answers. The more prepared you are, the better. Spend as much time on your bike beforehand as you can. Get to know that beast! If you don’t know how to use your gears, you are going to have a long ride... Take advantage of all the training that is on offer this year; I remember that in my mid-20s, I didn’t know how to fix a flat, and now I’m a bike mechanic. ‘It seems like a dark art: how do people do it?!’ Don’t worry, you’ve got this.”
shae byer has now been a part of the Bike Rally for 17 years. They are a seasoned Rider, veteran Crew, former PWA board member, and bike mechanic extraordinaire! This year, shae is part of the Steering Committee again, helping to guide the Ride (literally) in all of its Road Support glory. Read on; we know you want to find out more about this amazing human.
Bike Rally origin stories are always important, and this is how shae describes getting involved with the Bike Rally and why it was important for them to join the Ride: “In 2001, I had moved back from Vancouver to Toronto. At the time, I had a friend who had recently passed away from AIDS complications in Vancouver; a new friend in Toronto told me about a cycling event, in support of PWA. I didn’t know anything about PWA, but supporting an agency that existed to support people living with HIV/AIDS (PHAs) seemed like a no-brainer, so I did it, since I also loved cycling and it was pretty much like a vacation for me. A few years later, I had opened a bike shop with that same friend’s brother and the Bike Rally didn’t have a dedicated mechanic team at the time. (Thanks to Lucinda Wallace for reaching out!) We shut down the shop for a few days to help with bike support on the road, and I’ve been hooked on the Bike Rally community ever since.”
Following this train of thought, we asked shae why they choose to be part of the BIke Rally year after year: “While we had that bike shop, we supported a lot of Bike Rally participants. People would come in at the beginning of their Bike Rally experience, and the most fun would be when people who had never done this kind of thing before came in for help: ‘I’m going to ride my bike to Montreal and I don't know if I can do it.’ Watching people train, become more confident, actually ride their bike to Montreal, and then witness their sense of victory on arrival in Montreal… It's amazing! I loved that, as a shop and as mechanical support, we were supporting PWA; in addition, being part of the Bike Rally ‘yearly cycle,’ from watching people who have never really biked, to getting to Montreal feeling like rockstars, is worth supporting for so many reasons. It’s great for the agency, and it’s great for participants; it really starts as a challenge they want to accomplish, and becomes something more.”
When asked how they would describe the Bike Rally community, they responded with a laugh, “I think most of the people I call friends in the city are from the Bike Rally! I have such a huge, beautiful community because of this event! I would describe it as a very accepting community. It can sometimes be hard for new people to break into the Bike Rally, but we have worked to get a lot better at embracing new people. We’ve made a big effort to do that. I think that people are doing a great job at engaging new participants and making them feel welcome. It has felt really important to make it clear that it’s not a ‘gay event.’ It happens to have a lot of queer people and lots of exuberant personalities. It’s the one week of the year you can be whoever you want to be, whoever you are.
They go on to say, “It’s a diverse population showing up. Older white straight folks, young people who don’t even know themselves yet, and a spectrum of single and coupled people, straight/queer/brown/black/white. We are not perfect as a community, but I have been grateful to encounter so many people who choose to join this Bike Rally community for so many reasons. Ultimately, everyone is here for the same purpose: we are all supporting this cause and agency and that’s the underlying commonality that brings us all together and gets us through the week together.”
When asked about their top three memories of the Bike Rally, shae thoughtfully responded, “The crazy thing is, the first thing that comes to mind is, in year thirteen, we had the first (and only) experience of a participant dying on the Rally. He had a previous heart condition and he had a “coronary event”. He ended up dying on the second day. What I cherish about that situation is obviously not the loss of life, but how people came together and were extra kind to each other. Everyone stuck together even more and supported one another. The level of empathy amongst people and kindness towards each other… people really rallied to support each other, and I was really proud of everyone on the event that year.”
Reflecting further, shae tells us, “Every year at arrival (in Montreal), it is so moving and beautiful- whether we are connected with Diversite, or Pride, or just arrive on our own - I love watching people feel proud of themselves, of each other, and enjoy the new connections they’ve made.” They also say, “I’m thinking of my favourite places on the route, the little towns where people come out and wave, and hold signs, celebrate and cheer us on. We’ve developed some real support along the route. We end up having random conversations with people; there are people who slow their cars alongside us and ask about what we’re doing. Sometimes we get donations that way, and sometimes we just give them information. We definitely are raising awareness as we go, telling people what we’re doing and what we’re supporting.
It’s shocking the amount of stigma attached to HIV and AIDS, this many years later. That’s a big part of the reason I do this. I hate the stigma. I hate stigma of any kind. There’s no good that comes from stigma. It’s about education, and that’s a big part of why I’ve been here all these years.”
As a veteran Bike Rally rider, crew, board member, and bike mechanic, we had to ask shae how the Bike Rally has impacted their life all these years, and vice versa: “I feel like I’m not even the same person as when I started with the Bike Rally! I was barely out (of the closet) when I first joined. It was really the first place I felt really celebrated about who I was. I was encouraged to take leadership roles, and I remember feeling a little shocked at how people saw me as a leader. The things I’m doing now… I wouldn’t have ever thought. If you don’t see people like you doing things and living their best life, it feels like it’s impossible. The Bike Rally changed my life.”