Santa Barbara, Calif., February, 23 2008—One of the world’s top cycling teams, Jelly Belly, will ride stage six of the 2008 Amgen Tour of California, an eight-day bicycle race throughout California from February 17 to February 24, in honor of Best Buddies International and their programs dedicated to enhancing the lives of people with intellectual disabilities.
They will team up with Buddies Amy Lewis and Trevor Lucken,of Sacramento for the start as a part of Best Buddies International’s “Buddy Up” program in which five of the top professional teams during the Amgen Tour will each dedicate a stage to a person with intellectual disabilities.
“Best Buddies is about providing opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities, like Amy and Trevor, by creating friendships,” said Richard Fries, Marketing Director for the Audi Best Buddies Challenge, a Best Buddies charity ride in September. “And at the Amgen Tour, we’ve been able to highlight the power of friendship by “Buddy-ing Up” with some of the best teams and cyclists in the world.”
Lewis and Lucken will join Jelly Belly at the start line, where they will accompany Jelly Belly ride, Nick Reistad, 24-years-old of Brookfield, Wisc., onto the stage where they will take part in the sign-in ceremony. After that Reistad, a former state champion and member of the U.S. National team, along with his Jelly Belly teammates will race over 100 hilly miles from Santa Barbara to a thrilling finish in Santa Clarita. They’ll ride the entire stage in honor of Lewis and Lucken and the people just like them that Best Buddies supports.
Both Lewis and Lucken are students at Taft Community College’s Transition to Independent Living program in Taft, Calif., a post-secondary experience for developmentally disabled adults emphasizing learning independent living skills, and have been involved with Best Buddies International for several years both having taken part in the Audi Best Buddies Challenge: Hearst Castle, a five-star charity ride on September 6 that supports Best Buddies.
Visit BestBuddiesChallenge.org for more information. To find out more about Best Buddies International’s programs to enhance the lives of people with intellectual disabilities, go to BestBuddies.org.
About Best Buddies
Founded in 1989 by Anthony Kennedy Shriver, Best Buddies is a vibrant, international organization dedicated to enhancing the lives of people with intellectual disabilities by providing opportunities for one-to-one friendships and integrated employment. Best Buddies is now active in each of the 50 United States and operates accredited international programs in 34 countries. Best Buddies programs positively impact more than 350,000 each year.
About the Audi Best Buddies Challenge: Hearst Castle
The Audi Best Buddies Challenge is a five-star, luxury cycling experience that features a 100, 62 or 15-mile supported ride down the same spectacular stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway that the pros are riding in stage four, hot showers and professional massages at the finish line and a spectacular gourmet BBQ and concert at the Hearst Ranch.