Konoza: Ride to Remember -- Day One

Ride to Remember

September 11th, 2001

Day One: September 8th, 2002

Here are all 210 riders at Battery Park in NYC eager to begin their four day, 250 mile bike trek to the Pentagon in Arlington, VA

There were only 16 firefighters on the ride; the four of us on Team Arlington Fire made up 25% of the whole group

FIRST DAY! -- 71 Miles (NYC to Trenton, NJ)

We took the ferry from Jersey City, NJ to New York before the sun came up. We were fed a continental breakfast. We gathered our bikes off the Interstate moving vans and stretched our muscles. We posed for photos and then our bikes were blessed right before we left.

The first day was an easy one, fairly flat. We left out of Battery Park, shortly after sunset. We rode across the Brooklyn Bridge and then across the Verrazano Bridge into New Jersey and headed south. We were escorted by NYPD and then the New Jersey State Police. We had police motorcycles closing down intersections for us along the way.

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| Day Zero | Days Two and Three | Day Four |

We are all a blur of blue in the day one pictures; it's hard to figure out who's who

THE CHASE VEHICLES behind us as we cross the Brooklyn Bridge; besides the canteen unit, my favorite was the portable bathroom -- hey, you try drinking bottles and bottles of Gatorade and see how you feel :O}

This was the vehicle to avoid -- the SAG bus; if you rode too slow you would get picked-up and carried to the next pit stop; none of us on Team Arlington Fire would SAG at all during the whole ride--the hard training by coach Konoza paid off!

We were led out of NYC by the NYPD, of course

OUTBACK

We had lunch provided by the Outback on our first day; I took a moment to swap-out my helmet for a larger one

ME AND ELLEN

Here I am riding with my new friend Dr. Ellen Kessler; she's the infectious disease/exposure doc for all fire departments in northern Virginia; I'd known her name for years, but never thought we'd become cycling buddies :O)

CAN YOU FIX IT?

This mechanic would end up replacing my brake cable and then brake pads halfway through the ride; my rear brakes were so bad that I was wearing out my right hand and wrist from squeezing too hard all day

RICE KRISPIES TREATS

For some reason I craved Rice Krispies Treats at the pit stops; they say, 'give your body what it wants' -- so I did!

ALL PHOTOS ON THIS PAGE ARE COURTESY OF DEBRA TROELL UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED

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