Surprises, Some Pleasant, in L.A.

Piotr Jandula never was a bike rider and his first attempt to become one ended a few short months ago with a flat tire. So he would appear to be an unlikely participant in a 585-mile ride that begins Sunday in San Francisco and ends next Saturday in Dodger Stadium.

Until you hear his story.

Ring the bottom buzzer, Jandula had told me, and come down the lane when the gate opens. This was in a countrified section of Panorama City, and a border collie mix came loping toward me as I made my way toward Jandula’s bungalow hideaway.

“Don’t worry,” Jandula said, following behind Nellie. “She’s friendly.”

We sat in his sun-washed parlor on Memorial Day and he told me about growing up in Poland and studying music around the clock, first the piano and then the viola. There was no time for bike riding.

Music brought him to Indiana University and then to New Mexico. Seven years ago, he and his viola came to Los Angeles in search of a bigger musical challenge, and the city nearly destroyed Jandula.

“I felt incredibly isolated in L.A.,” he says, even though he found work with the Los Angeles Opera and Pasadena Symphony, along with Hollywood studio jobs. “I was always either playing music or driving, with very little social time. My life was so loveless and I couldn’t connect.”

Then, a few years ago, two things brought him out of his funk, changing his entire outlook on L.A.

One was getting Nellie, the border collie.

The other was finding out he was HIV-positive.

The dog part is self-explanatory. Nellie brought companionship, became a conversation piece and introduced Jandula to great parks and canyons.

“She goes with me everywhere,” he says, including the Polam Federal Credit Union, where Nellie puts her paws up to the teller window and a clerk named Malgosia gives her dog treats.

But few people have told me that testing positive for HIV brought joy to their lives.

“I don’t want to sound like an ad for HIV, because I’ve seen a lot of suffering,” says Jandula, whose health insurance has covered most of the cost of his medication.

“So far I’ve been lucky, and healthier than I’ve ever been. Testing positive made my life much more my own and much more worth living. You live in the moment when you’re HIV-positive, because you have to.”

Jandula, who is gay, says he had unprotected sex, so he wasn’t surprised at the test results. Driving home over Laurel Canyon with the news that he was HIV-positive, he saw a bumper sticker that read “Forgiven.”

The real turnaround began when he went to a weekend support group gathering at L.A. Shanti on La Brea Avenue in Hollywood.

“I came out of there with 140 of the kind of friends I had been searching for,” Jandula said. “L.A. is a city where you have to make things happen. You have to make appointments, because you don’t bump into people in the street, and if you expect things to come to you, you’ll be sitting home alone.”

Late last year, Jandula decided to join 1,200 other riders in the third annual AIDS/LifeCycle that begins Sunday, raising money for AIDS/HIV programs. He bought a bike but didn’t start pedaling until late February, when his very first ride was a bust.

Countless flats and hundreds of miles later, he says he’s ready for 585 miles in one week, including some grueling hills along the coast.

He knew he could handle it the day he set out from home and pedaled south on Coldwater Canyon up to Mulholland Drive, where he rode along the top of the Hollywood Hills, then dropped back down to Ventura Boulevard and west to Encino. Then he climbed Topanga Canyon and cruised down to the beach, turned east on Sunset Boulevard back to La Brea. Then it was Franklin to Cahuenga, up and over into the San Fernando Valley, to Lankershim and back home.

“It felt great,” says Jandula. “Exhausting and great. Just like Nellie, the bike has changed my relationship with L.A. You see things in a slower speed. I actually experienced spring, because you can smell it and see things in bloom, and you see people in a different way, too.”

He was not looking forward to hitting those people up for money, but participants in the ride have to raise $2,500 from sponsors to benefit AIDS/HIV programs. Jandula thought there was no way he could meet that demand, but Los Angeles surprised him again.

“One of the most amazing experiences of my life was when I received a huge amount right up front that exceeded all my expectations. I was thinking I’d get maybe $50, and one of my friends gave me $1,000. I didn’t even know how to react.”

Lately, Jandula has been playing in a band with actress/singer Megan Mullally of “Will and Grace.” For his 40th birthday, he put together his own band, calling on friends to help him stage a benefit concert.

“I’m in a place in my life where I have everything I need,” Jandula says. So he asked friends to consider sponsoring him in the bike ride rather than bringing a gift to the birthday concert

Before long, he had soared past $2,500 and was on his way to $5,000 and beyond. (If you’d like to sponsor Jandula, go to www.aidslifecycle.org, click on “make a donation,” and type in “Piotr.”)

“This is a liberation ride,” Jandula said. “It’s about being a part of something and giving instead of being on the receiving end.”

His only regret is that Nellie won’t be making the ride. No dogs allowed.

The teller from the credit union will be dog-sitting.

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Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.