Virginia Aprahamian relishes the thought of taking on Climate Ride’s Bar Harbor to Boston 5 day fundraising challenge.

By Patrick McDonagh

“My dad took me to a parking lot of a local high school where there were sixteen-year-olds learning how to drive,” Virginia recalls. “I was learning how to fall on a bike.” Summer 2013, Virginia Aprahamian’s Cannondale Synapse Six Alloy features disc brakes that slow her face-melting forty mph downhill to leisurely speed with the squeeze of a handle. Sans training wheels, the carbon mount is more than capable of taming her father’s push in the high school parking lot. With her father’s help, Aprahamian learns to ride a bike in one day.

Virginia Aprahamian and fellow Somerville resident Laura DeBenedetto will be traveling 390 miles, joining more than one hundred cyclists on Climate Ride’s Bar Harbor to Boston 5 day fundraising excursion. The two-year transition between learning to ride and marathon cycling trips was inevitable for Aprahamian. “I don’t have any other sensation like it,” she said.

Bulgarian born Aprahamian lived rurally with little more than chickens, goats, and grandparents in the Eastern Bloc country until six years of age; four of which separated from her mother.

Laura DeBenedetto and friend chilling before heading out for a ride.

Aprahamian moved to the states joining her then single parent following an early 90’s end of Bulgarian dictatorial rule. A former New Yorker, she learned to ride after completing an undergraduate degree at Dartmouth, moving to Somerville, and realizing the necessity of cyclist transportation without a driver’s license. Aprahamian’s hybrid bike is both work transportation to the attorney general’s office, and a means for weekend escape. “Within thirty minutes I am out of the city and into a very peaceful landscape,” She effuses. “I go fast enough that the wind is so loud I can’t hear too much around me except for tunneling wind going past. I am zooming and making myself zoom that fast. I am sure my motivation is some combination of endorphins, it is just fulfilling for me. My phone is on silent, and there is total attachment to the ride. I am in my happy place, smiling by the end of every ride.” Aprahamian will be riding with Team Awesome For Allison in memory of her close friend Allison Smith killed in a car crash February of this year.

The Climate Ride Growth Fund will be receiving a portion of Team Awesome’s fundraising as tribute to Allison; an avid environmentalist and Climate Ride enthusiast. Allison and wife Lucy Pollard were en route for February skiing when struck. A 2005 Jeep Liberty and a 2009 Subaru outback both totaled, Allison sustained fatal injuries, Pollard survived. Friends and loved ones of Allison Smith decided a proper tribute for the cyclist would be riding Climate Ride’s first Northeast trip and fundraising in her honor.

Once met, Climate Ride’s minimum individual fundraising goal of $2,800 can be distributed to advocacy groups, non-profits, and organizations of the rider’s choosing. Team Awesome For Allison’s group goal of $10,000 will be utilized in ways the “humble yet vivacious environmentalist” would have wanted, while the five-day coastal ride will provide for team’s emotional release. Aprahamian agrees, “There is no better way to heal as a group than to sweat for five days, get your endorphins out just pedaling as hard as you can with a bunch of really cool people who are doing the same thing.” Winter cyclist, frequent marathoner, and Somerville resident, Laura DeBenedetto, is one of these people.

“This is the first winter I decided I was going to bike the whole way through,” DeBenedetto jokes uneasily, recognizing her timely choice coinciding with record snowfall. “Yeah, I decided in the fall. I definitely worked from home a couple of days and took the T two or three times. The roads got smaller every time it snowed. When they plowed there was significantly less room. The commute is about five miles door to door for me but my car is an old 98 rear weal drive. It fishtails so it usually sits in its spot all winter.”

DeBenedetto’s EnerNOC energy analyst office is equipped with bike room, tools, and “pseudo bike mechanic” co-workers. Her fundraised money will be allocated to the Boston Cyclists Union, and Bikes Not Bombs, an organization that reclaims, refurbishes, and internationally distributes donated bicycles.

Fundraising is decidedly the most stressful aspect of Climate Ride for the New York to DC ride veteran. 60-80 miles of back road riding for DeBenedetto is fundraising motivation while marathons are more anxiety educing. “Biking is easier to enjoy while you are doing it as opposed to being in complete agony while running,” She said. “Not as much pounding on your joints. You can go slower for a few hours, pick it up if you want, but there is no one chasing you telling you to keep a specific time. Biking is more leisurely than running for me.” DeBenedetto describes an atmosphere determined by rider motivation, from the hardcore to the relaxed and ridiculous.

“A lot of people will bring bike mounted speakers for the ride,” DeBenedetto’s uncertain laughter precedes story; a New York to DC ride with overzealous Lion King fans. “There was one group that just had all Disney songs the whole time. You ride with them for five minutes and then you are doomed for the rest of the day singing Circle Of Life in your head for the next few hours.”

Downtime consists of dinner, socializing and speaker presentations. Both riders are eager for Climate Ride Northeast’s coastal vistas and history studded route. The later 64-mile finish passing the American Revolution’s first battlefield, through Paul Revers ride from Lexington, with an ending along the Charles River into Boston’s public Commons.

Both riders plan on hosting fundraiser events prior to the September 17 start date. There is talk of a local brewery or bar event in the near future. Dates and logistics are to be announced.

For more information, to register to ride or to support a cyclist or team, Somerville residents can visit www.climateride.org or call 406-552-0708. Participants can enter the discount code climateride2015 for $25 off their registration fee.