GRANVILLE, Vt. – Pete Parrish was dressed in unremarkable blue and white, but she stood out vividly in her small village Thursday.

Parrish stood in a sea of brightly clad bicyclists who had stopped for lunch in her field on their way from Montreal to Portland on a fund-raising ride.

“It’s good to see this many people in Granville,” said Tina Mayhew of neighboring Hancock, who watched the gathering with her mother and two young children. “There’s usually nothing going on.”

The bikers were in Granville as part of a five-day ride put on by Pallotta Teamworks, a for-profit California company that organizes several such events all over the country to raise money for AIDS research.

The riders left Montreal on Wednesday, spent a night in a giant tent city organized by Pallotta in Essex, and rode to Quechee for another night of camping Thursday. Friday, they were scheduled to ride to Hopkinton, N.H., to spend another night, and then to Wells, Maine, before arriving in Portland on Sunday.

In all, the 1,800 riders were expected to raise about $6 million riding 400 miles. The money will go to Pallotta, to cover the ride’s expenses, and to researchers Dr. Irvin Chen of the AIDS Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles; Dr. David Ho of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center; and Dr. Rafi Ahmed of the Emory Vaccine Center.

The vaccine that was the purpose of the ride was very much on the minds of the riders as they gathered for lunch in a large field next to Parrish’s house in Granville village.

“I think AIDS is the battle of my generation,” said Brian King, 35, a vice president for Marriott who lives in Dallas. On Wednesday night, Pallotta had some AIDS researchers speak to the riders about where their money was being spent.

“That helps to keep us motivated,” King said.

A group of 25 riders in neon called the Shagadelics came in from Chicago.

“I’m kind of passionate about the cause,” said Shelley Scott, a dietitian who works with HIV and AIDS patients in Chicago. “A vaccine, in my opinion, is the only way to get rid of this thing.”

Like many others from Western states, Scott said she hadn’t fully prepared for Vermont’s topography.

“It’s a little hilly out here,” she said. “We’re used to cornfields and flatness.”

Others exclaimed repeatedly that they weren’t used to seeing so much greenery, even though Vermont’s dry summer has left the hills looking slightly parched.

“The route is really beautiful,” said Ted Metellus of New York City, one of the ride’s many organizers. “There are great shoulders [for the bikers to ride on]; and I can’t believe how lush and green it is.”

The riders had perfect early fall weather Thursday: a cool morning, a warm day, and very bright sunshine.

Pallotta Teamworks organizes every aspect of the ride, so that all the riders have to do is pedal from one spot to the next. Pallotta sets out the huge tent cities where the riders sleep, provides meals and entertainment, and cleans up before moving on.

“Our goal is to leave it better than we found it,” said Alan Parker, a Pallotta manager.

At the Granville lunch stop, the entertainment theme was Christmas, and pieces such as Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” boomed over the sunny scene. A few of the volunteers sported Santa costumes, and Parrish had donated her own plastic light-up Santa for the event.

The riders left each stop in waves, not together, and they spread out as the miles rolled by. Hours after the first riders were leaving the Granville lunch stop for Quechee, others were still rolling in for lunch. There was a bus for people who decided they’d had enough.

As they cycled through Waitsfield, many passed by the Pallotta rest stop and chose instead to go into the village grocery for snacks and drinks to get them through their 100-mile day.

“They were high-carb people,” said Jane Viens, a clerk at the store.