It’s 6:20 a.m. Wednesday on the Sports Pavilion and Aquatic Center basketball court. Behind an arc of seven stationary bikes, speakers pump out music with a strong beat: “You might as well be walking on the sun. —”

Sharon Bautista pumps the pedals in time during her “spin” class, hardly ever reaching for a towel.

Today she’s doing an hour workout on an exercise bike, simulating riding conditions on different terrain.

Other weekdays she wakes at sunrise and takes the Green Bay trail north, biking past parks, golf courses and baseball fields for 30-mile rides, doubling that distance on weekends.

But Bautista says she’s not an athlete.

She signed up in November for the 500-mile AIDSRide knowing she’d have to raise $2,300 by July — and teach herself to ride a bike.

“I came to do a ride, not because I’m a cyclist who wants to do a nice 500-mile ride in the summer, but because of the cause,” said Bautista, a Speech junior with another major in art history.

Bautista will join about 1,700 riders July 10 through July 15 on a ride from the Twin Cities through Wisconsin to Chicago. There are four other AIDSRides in different cities throughout the summer.

Since the ride’s inception seven years ago, volunteers have raised more than $65 million to benefit AIDS organizations in participating cities.

Seven years ago Bautista had just begun to learn about AIDS and was struck by the discrimination against its victims.

“I couldn’t understand how people could turn their backs on them based on their lifestyle or the way they got sick,” Bautista said. “When people are sick, you do something to help them.”

At NU she has worked with the NAMES Project, leading high school students through the AIDS memorial quilt display Fall Quarter 1998 at Navy Pier. During one tour, a girl whose relative had recently died of AIDS broke down and cried, and her friends gathered around her to comfort her, Bautista said.

“Seeing lives remembered this way was amazing,” she said. “So much of the quilt is celebrating the lives of these people, their sense of humor, their friendships — these are everyday people whose lives have been taken by disease.”

Bautista worked last year at Open Hand Chicago, an organization that provides meals for people with AIDS. She also took three Alternative Spring Break trips to AIDS service organizations in Atlanta, San Francisco and Boston.

So when two of her friends returned from AIDSRides last year with rave reviews, Bautista decided to take the challenge.

She bought a red Trek 7300 bike during Winter Break, took it out into the driveway and convinced herself to get on it. Since she planned to spend a good deal of time with the bike, she gave it a “name of affection”: Stanley, after Stanley Roper in “Three’s Company.”

“(The Ropers) were an old couple that really loved each other,” Bautista said. “They were kind of nasty but not all the time.”

She and Stanley started with 5-mile trips around the neighborhood. After seven months of daily training, sunrise rides and spin classes, Bautista is working up to a “century ride” — 100 miles.

Then there’s the matter of money.

Required to raise at least $2,300 before the ride, Bautista collected about $1,000 in donations from friends and family. Then the 12 people in her ASB Boston group pooled their donations and used it to throw her a party that raised about $800.

Nearly 100 people attended, including most of her French class.

“We knew that she could do this but that she could use a helping hand in raising the money,” said Michelle Santiago, site leader for the Boston trip.

Santiago recalled Bautista’s knack for bonding with others during an ASB trip this Spring Break to the Boston Living Center, a community center for HIV/AIDS support where students helped with meals, massage therapy and employment advising.

“There was this guy (in the center) doing sculpture work and she just a sparked huge conversation with him about art for over an hour,” Santiago said. “It was amazing how quickly they formed a real camaraderie.”

During the ride, Bautista plans to send excerpts from a journal to people who helped her through fund raising and the rigorous training regimen.

“You really need a support system,” Bautista said. “It’s a trying, challenging undertaking. There are so many days I don’t think I can do it, and they all think I can.”

Bautista said she’d like to stay involved in the AIDSRide and might work on the crew of the new Alaska route next year.

That’s after the yearlong National Museum Fellows Program with the Chicago Historical Society, which includes seminars downtown, a $6,000 stipend and trips to museums in different cities across the country.

Bautista hopes to eventually find a career that melds her two loves, art history and AIDS service, perhaps teaching art as therapy or preserving artwork produced by AIDS patients.

“You meet the most inspiring people who’ve either worked for or benefit directly from these organizations,” Bautista said. “They’re not superhuman and that’s the most amazing part. They’re just everyday people you pass on the street and wouldn’t take a second look at. But when you sit down and take the time (to get to know them), you find out how powerful the human spirit is.”