24-hour spinning competition at Petersen Events Center aims to connect service dogs with veterans

For 24 hours — 10 a.m. Saturday until 10 a.m. Sunday — the Petersen Events Center in the Oakland will be a cyclist’s dream, as Team Foster, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit dedicated to connecting veterans with service dogs, hosts its third Ruff Ride in Pittsburgh.

Part festival, part competition, Ruff Ride is a 24-hour event with stationary bike teams competing against each other. Throughout the event, DJs, bands and speakers will keep riders’ energy up. During one segment, local veterans who the organization has helped will make an appearance with their service dogs and tell their stories to attendees.

“I don’t care who you are, if you have a dry eye, you don’t have a heart,” said Ruff Ride competitor Renae Brinza. “It’s emotional. All of these dogs have saved their lives.”

Brinza, 65, is an avid cyclist and participating in her third Ruff Ride. She met her team, the Cycle Paths, at the Sampson Family YMCA in Plum. After receiving fourth place at last year’s event, they’re back to win it all.

They will be facing off against 25 other teams, each of which was charged with raising $2,000 to participate in the competition.

“Everybody there knows it’s a good cause,” Brinza said. “Everybody there wants to do it, but let me tell you, everybody is competitive.”

Brinza was in charge of recruiting people on her team to cycle from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Saturday. They made a strategy for each person to cycle for 20 minutes on their team’s bike. Each competitor will cycle at their ideal tension and RPM ratio to gain the most points. Brinza said her team is diverse in age and gender, and they will be competing against teams of all levels of athleticism.

“I’ve got a big smile on my face (just talking about it) because I do love it,” Brinza said. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Nick Liermann, executive director of Team Foster, founded the organization nine years ago after he entered a 100-mile cycling competition with his friends in honor of his friend and fellow serviceman Captain Erick Foster, who was killed in action in 2007. The two men met as ROTC cadets in Pittsburgh, and Foster had a huge effect on those around him.

“The weekend that we were going to do it just happened to be the anniversary of the weekend that Eric was killed,” Liermann said. “The group I was with agreed to make it a memorial ride of sorts.”

After the ride was agreed upon, they raised $4,000. From there, more people began participating in what was dubbed the Foster 100. As the event grew, so did Team Foster, and the organization was born.

Liermann said the organization tries to continue Foster’s legacy of looking out for others.

“We do this by trying to raise money to provide these life-saving, accredited service dogs to injured and disabled vets,” Liermann said. “Traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury are really prominent problems in the veteran community. The suicide rate is sky high, and it’s a really complicated problem. These service dogs are an elegant solution to that problem.”

Ruff Ride started six years ago in Philadelphia, and the organization has slowly been growing it to other locations. There have been events in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, along with a 100-mile outdoor race in South Jersey. They hope to start hosting Ruff Rides in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York by 2024.

Liermann enjoys the event as much as other participants. At 3 a.m., he plans to hop on a bike in an open challenge and bet $250 of his own money that no one can beat him.

“It’s as much of a festival as it is a competition,” Liermann said.