Employee bicycles to remember friend, fight AIDS

When Carol Samuel started her freshman year at the university in 1965, her first roommate didn’t work out. So she switched roommates after three weeks and moved in with Betsy Meyer.

They moved after their freshman year and stayed friends through their studies, but lost track of each other after graduation. It wasn’t until 1994 that Samuel became reacquainted with her old roommate — in an unfortunate way.

News accounts at the time chronicled the death of Elizabeth Meyer Glaser, wife of actor Paul Michael Glaser, who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion. She passed the disease to her daughter through breastfeeding, and before she died spoke eloquently about her situation at the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

While reading the news stories, Samuel realized that Elizabeth Meyer Glaser was indeed her old roommate, Betsy Meyer.

“I just sat there, stunned and feeling terrible,” says Samuel, 53, a financial management supervisor in UW–Madison’s Accounting Services. “I was feeling a big loss, and I hadn’t seen her in years.”

To remember her old friend and continue the fight against AIDS, Samuel began participating in AIDS Rides, long-distance bicycle rides where riders raise money for AIDS research. Samuel’s riding has reached a peak this year, as she is taking part in all five national AIDS Rides.

She has completed four rides, and she leaves Tuesday, Oct. 10, for the fifth and final AIDS Ride from Houston to Dallas, scheduled for Oct. 12-15.

Samuel is part of an elite group of riders who compete in every AIDS Ride in one year, known as “Spokebusters.”

“Last year during the Twin Cities to Chicago ride, I told my friends I wanted to be a Spokebuster,” Samuel says. “My friends started telling others along the way that I was going to be a Spokebuster next year, and the more they said it, I thought ‘why not?'”

She admits the life of a Spokebuster is not easy. When she pedals into Dallas Oct. 15 on her purple and silver Terry road bike, Samuel will have logged about 2,000 miles during the AIDS Rides. In addition, she has spent countless hours not only training but also fundraising for each ride. Overall, Samuel has raised $10,800 this year for the fight against AIDS.

To accommodate time off from work, Samuel has used up her vacation time. And she has paid for her own airfare to travel to the San Francisco to Los Angeles AIDS Ride June 4-10, the Raleigh, N.C. to Washington D.C. AIDS Ride June 22-25, and the Boston to New York AIDS Ride Sept. 15-17. She also competed in the Twin Cities-Wisconsin-Chicago AIDS Ride July 10-15.

With all the camaraderie among the Spokebusters, Samuel confesses it will be hard not to join the group again next year.

“It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever done next to raising my three kids,” she says. # # # -Erik Christianson, (608) 262-0930, echristi@facstaff.wisc.edu