High School Sophomore Sacrifices Spring Break to Ride for a Cause

For most high school kids, spring break means sleeping late, spending more time than usual on Facebook and, for those old enough to drive, perhaps making a trip or two to the beach. For Garrett Robinson, it means catching a ride to Tallahassee so he can ride his bike back to Lakeland.

RICK RUNION/ THE LEDGER Garrett Robinson rides his bike around Lake Hollingsworth in Lakeland, Florida Wednesday March 19, 2008. Robinson will be completing a three-day bike ride from Tallahassee to Lakeland to raise money for an HIV awareness group.

LIFE MATCH Garrett Robinson stands his bike around in Lakeland, Florida Wednesday March 19, 2008. Robinson will be completing a three-day bike ride from Tallahassee to Lakeland to raise money for an HIV awareness group. The Rick Runion/ The Ledger

This will be the fourth year in a row Robinson, a sophomore at Lakeland High School, participates in a long-distance ride to raise money for Friends Together, Inc., his mother's Lakeland-based non-profit organization devoted to helping families affected by HIV.

Robinson, 16, and at least one other rider plan to cover the roughly 300 miles over the course of three days beginning March 31, the first day of spring break for Polk County's public schools. His mother, Cathy Robinson Pickett, said the ride raised more than $20,000 last year.

Robinson, a member of the Lakeland High wrestling team, is an athletic guy but not a regular cyclist. He said he began training two months in advance, going out for rides of 10 to 20 miles on his blue Giant OCR3 road bike.

"It's been tough, but I still make it through it," he said the of previous rides. "I'm not really nervous; it's just kind of intimidating. I'm going to be in pain; it's not easy. After about 50 miles, your legs are getting real sore and tired."

But Robinson is dedicated to the cause, and the ride is also a tribute to his late stepfather, Steve Pickett, co-founder of Friends-Together. Pickett, who started the ride in 2001 and took part in the first few, died in a vehicle accident in 2005. March 31, the opening day of this year's ride, is his birthday.

Robinson will be joined by Julie Sprague, a teacher at Gulf Coast High School in Naples and a friend of his mother's. With Cathy Robinson Pickett driving a support van, the pair are scheduled to stop overnight in Branford and Ocala on their way south. They plan to arrive in Lakeland around 4 p.m. on April 2, with a celebration at Florida Southern College expected to follow. The party is open to the public.

Cathy Robinson Pickett said this year's event includes "virtual rides." She said students from Florida Southern and other colleges and high schools will ride the 300 miles on stationary bikes during the same week.

"We had more and more people who wanted to ride that aren't really riders and don't have the right kind of bike or the skills to ride in traffic," Pickett said. "We started thinking last year, 'How can we do this in a much safer way and a way more people can ride?'"

Friends-Together stages classes, camps, Christmas parties and other events for families affected by HIV. In an e-mail seeking pledges sent to friends and relatives, Robinson said the organization has struggled to survive in recent years, racked by Steve Pickett's death and the departure of several longtime volunteers. Cathy Robinson Pickett, who has HIV as the result of a sexual assault in 1984, has also had health problems recently.

Though riding a bike 300 miles might not be Garrett Robinson's first choice of ways to spend his spring break, he said the purpose behind the ride keeps him pedaling.

[ Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or at 863-802-7518. Check out Gary's outdoors blog at fitpolk.theledger.com. ]