Pissed off would hardly even describe how I’m feeling right now. Two days ago my best friend Philip Barbosa (www.philipbarbosa.com) was informed that he was not welcome to do the People With Aids Foundation’s Toronto to Montreal ride (www.bikerally.org) on his big-wheel unicycle like he had been planning. This was not in an effort to show off or to show up the bike riders, but because Phil is an odd character at best, and deserves an odd vehicle. He’s a unicyclist. I’m a unicyclist. It’s a fucking wheel, not unlike many wheels found on many bikes.
But the underhanded shit they keep trying to pull is both sad and amusing. Organizers that are going around telling stories should probably get their stories straight. Telling the rider (Phil) one thing, then telling his sponsers another is a horrible idea. Trying to save face by telling outright lies is also a horrible idea. The really sad part is, is that it’s the people the money is supposed to benefit, that will lose out the most. Because I know for a fact I’m pulling all pledges I had submitted, not only for Phil but for bike riders as well, and I know others who are doing the same.
My e-mail to them was very politically correct and calm and collected, when really screaming profanities at the top of my virtual lungs would be more in tune with what I was feeling. I thought it best to not ramble about how there have been unicyclists in the Ride for Heart (a Toronto day-long ride down a major highway) every year, that unicyclists enter various extreme competitions and races and never come in last, the general idea that there are multiple unicycle tours going on all around the world, and that if 11 and 13 year olds can ride over 600km in a very foregin country (Laos) that Phil should have absoloutly no problem completeing the ride that was set forth.
Here’s in part my e-mail to the organizers, and I do hope I end up getting my money back, because seriously, this is just dumb fucking shit.
As a unicyclist, I can not in good faith support an organization that can discriminate against a fellow cyclist simply based on the vehicle they choose. Especally the way this was handled, encouraging the time and personal resources put into fundraising and gaining awareness before suddenly, mere weeks before the event, to be told he can suddenly no longer ride.
I had been training with Phil, on our respective unicycles, since this past March to help prepare him for this journey, and I can assure you he is not a safety concern to himself or others. Not only that I have also spent large amounts of time promoting Phil’s efforts to raise money for your organization that now I feel have gone to waste.
I urge you to check the Unicycle Tours webpage (http://www.unitours.org/) to educate yourselves on the capabilities of unicyclists around the world. There are many charities and local communities that have benefited from unicyclists raising money through long distance riding, and it is a shame that the People with AIDS foundation has chosen to not be one of them.
It was about as respectful as I could get.
