Alliance Ride Supports Wounded Warriors

Saturday is much more than just "Cinco de Mayo." Returning to Alpharetta for the third consecutive year is the Scott Rigsby Foundation’s 2012 Alliance Ride and Epic Handcycling Road Race sponsored by Jackson Healthcare.

• Saturday, May 5 at 7:30 a.m.
• 
  2655 Northwinds Parkway in Alpharetta.

All proceeds support wounded warriors from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom and will be used for the Georgia Warrior Alliance Wounded Warrior Family Retreat program.  The race will start with an aerial display performed by the U.S. Army Silver Wings Team from Ft. Benning.

The Alliance Ride is open to all recreational and competitive amateur cyclists and will follow a new 25-mile and 50-mile, police-managed course through the picturesque and gentle rolling streets of Alpharetta and Milton. The Epic Handcycling Road Race will follow the new 25-mile course and will begin 20 minutes ahead of the upright cyclists on May 5.

A second Criterium handcycling race will be held on Sunday, May 6 beginning at 9 a.m. on a 1.3 mile closed course loop in Alpharetta. 

has donated all mechanical support for the race, available to riders before, during and immediately after the event.  Bike Alpharetta is providing all volunteer marshals.

One person certain to be in attendance is Retired Army Sgt. Jarrad Turner, director of Warrior Services at the Scott Rigsby Foundation and a medical health assistant at the Veterans Health Administration. Sgt. Turner was injured in 2006 during his second tour of duty as a combat medic in Iraq. Stateside, he battled through his recovery with the help of the SHARE Initiative at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta and became acquainted with the Scott Rigsby Foundation during a Wounded Warrior Retreat. 

Turner knows full well the problems that veterans face when they have suffered injury, both physical and emotional, during their tours of duty and has decided to take this on as a personal battle.  He doesn’t want to be called a hero; he simply wants to stand up and do something.  According to Turner, the Department of Defense and the VA alone cannot handle a problem of this magnitude.  “Community organizations need to get together and take up the slack.”

Enter the Alliance Ride.

The Scott Rigsby Foundation has said that their goal is to make the Alliance Ride Georgia’s largest annual, nonprofit celebration and fundraiser for U.S. Wounded Warriors returning from the Global War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The joins Jackson Healthcare and all the event’s sponsors to help make this goal a reality.

“These heroes have earned our support,” says Janet Rodgers, President and CEO of the Alpharetta CVB.  “We encourage the Alpharetta community to come out in full force as participants and spectators on May 5 and 6. We are also asking our community to spread the word to bikers and family members from out of town, in hopes that they will attend the event, spend the weekend at one of Alpharetta’s 23 hotels, and enjoy all the additional amenities that Alpharetta has to offer.”