Firefighters cycle through Vallejo as part of 9/11 tribute ride
(Video by Matthew Keys/Solano NewsNet)
More than a dozen current and retired firefighters and their supporters participated in the first leg of a memorial bike ride through Vallejo on Sunday.
The ride, called Bay 2 Brooklyn, is in tribute to the hundreds of firefighters and other victims who lost their lives in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack, which took place two decades ago this year.
The event is organized by Darrell "Skillet" Sales, a retired firefighter from Santa Clara who organized a similar ride for the 10th anniversary of the terror attack. He is joined by more than a dozen active duty and retired firefighters, paramedics, members of the military and supporters from throughout the western United States.
The memorial ride began on Sunday when participants cycled from a fire station in Santa Clara to the Ferry Building in San Francisco. From there, the riders crossed the San Francisco Bay by ferry bound for Vallejo, where they later cycled from the Ferry Terminal to the Vallejo Fire Department’s Station 27.
The cyclists plan to ride nearly 100 miles per day for the next six weeks, with the goal of ending in Brooklyn on September 9, two days from the 20th anniversary of the terror attack.
Firefighters are united by a bond of public service, and when more than 340 firefighters perished in the attack, that sense of loss from that day was widely experienced.
“We feel each other’s accomplishments, and we feel each other’s pain, and on September 11…we felt the most pain in the fire service that we had ever felt,” John Byrne, a battalion chief with CAL FIRE based in Sausalito, told Solano NewsNet in an interview on Sunday.
It is the second Bay 2 Brooklyn memorial ride for Byrne, whose wife Courtney is also participating in the event for a few days. Byrne says he managed to train during what little free time he has as an active duty firefighter during what is already shaping up to be a busy fire season.
One active blaze burning near Chico is generating poor air quality that will result in the riders briefly swapping their bikes for a car trip from Sacramento to Eugene, Oregon.
The rest of the trip — which spans hundreds of miles of middle America — is expected to be completed by bicycle. Along the way, riders will lodge overnight in fire houses.
During the trip, riders will pass through Sioux City, Chicago and Pittsburgh, the latter close to the scene of where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field during the terror attack. (The plane was supposed to land in San Francisco; some victims on board were from the Bay Area.)
On Monday, the memorial ride continues through Solano County with a leg that starts in Vallejo and winds through portions of Fairfield, rural Vacaville and Dixon before ultimately ending at the California Firefighters Memorial on the grounds of the state Capitol in Sacramento.
Fore more information on the Bay 2 Brooklyn ride, visit https://bay2brooklyn2021.com.
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