This year, BRAKING AIDS® Ride

Starts Friday From Cooperstown

COOPERSTOWN – For the first time, the annual BRAKING AIDS® Ride – it’s the seventh year of the fundraiser – will depart from Cooperstown: at 6:45 a.m. tomorrow (Friday) from the Clark Sports Center.

The BRAKING AIDS^® Ride will bring together 150 cycling activists, a volunteer road crew, and thousands of their supporters to raise money and awareness in support of efforts to end AIDS and homelessness.

Riders will complete a three-day, 300-mile ride from Cooperstown, riding across New York State to Albany, through the Catskills and down the Hudson Valley, making their way into New York City on Sunday, Sept. 16, to proclaim the approaching end of AIDS.

BRAKING AIDS^® Ride benefits Housing Works, a non-profit organization providing lifesaving services to thousands of people living with HIV who have limited or no financial resources to manage the disease. Since 2012, BRAKING AIDS^® Ride has raised over $1.7 million for Housing Works and the support continues to flourish.

The event’s opening ceremonies will feature remarks by Housing Works President and CEO Charles King, who will participate his seventh ride this year.

“BRAKING AIDS^® Ride reflects our commitment to fight every day to end HIV as an epidemic and to achieve health equity and social justice for the most disenfranchised New Yorkers,” said King. “2016 data indicates we are on track for achieving most of our ending-the-epidemic targets, but we are lagging behind on several fronts outside New York City.

“We have not seen sufficient declines in new infections among women, especially transgender women, and we have also seen a frightening rise in new infections among foreign-born Latino gay and bisexual men.”

Major New York cities and town that the ride will pass through on the route follow below. Click here for a complete list of cheering stations for spectators and media.

Day 1: Fri., Sept. 14:  Cooperstown • Schenectady • Albany

Day 2: Sat., Sept.15: Albany • Saugerties • Woodstock • Kerhonkson/Ellenville

Day 3: Sun., Sept. 16:  Ellenville • Cornwall • Nyack • Englewood/Bergen County, NJ • New York City

The closing ceremony will be held at 6 p.m. Sunday at Grant’s Tomb National Monument (W. 122nd Street and Riverside Drive) in New York City. As the riders arrive, memorial flags will be hoisted to commemorate those lost in the fight against AIDS. A victory party will follow at Riverside Memorial Church.