The "Ride to Ground Zero"

Posted Saturday, September 11, 2010 NLMC blog

"It was a time," Wilpon said, "when you really remembered just how insignificant sports can be compared to the other matters of the world."

Nine years later, people still flock to Ground Zero, and they take pictures, and they shoot video, and after awhile you realize: they don't come for the view. They come because they remember, too, no matter where they were on the bright, perfect morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Nine years later. And for the rest of our lives.
"New York Post"

John C. called me at work to find out if there was any "meet" up this way for the Ride to the 7:10 A.O.B. at the State Police Troop F barracks in Westbrook. I told him there was no official "meet" up this way. Sandwich and myself met at Walmart in Groton for the ride down. I called John to let him know and three of us got together at Mcdonalds in Flanders then rode to the meet. I figured we were arriving pretty early and would be one of the firsts, to my surprise the group was well established when we arrived. At 7:10pm Vinny Y. saw us off, we rode south to the Branford truck Stop where we met Steve N. and Tree., from there we headed south along 95 into New Haven, then rte 34 to Derby for the next meet. Arriving at Heavenly Donuts we met Mr. Meadows and his crew plus riders that Jim Skerritt had sent there. After fueling up and a series of discussions the main group moved off to pick up the Merritt parkway at 8:30 while the Meadows group left at 9:45pm. The ride proceded west along the Merritt to the Hutchinson River Parkway into New York City and a to the Whitestone Bridge. The club rode in an almost perfect formation, very little shuffling and tightly packed, it was a ride practiced many times and yet perfectly pulled off few times, this was one of those few times where everything went fantastically...that is until...The Whitestone Tolls.

Tolls at the bridge are $5.50 per vehicle, so everyone was informed, and everyone made sure they had enough to cover the toll readily available at arrival. The normal procedure is for the Club to use one toll lane, pay, move forward to hold the lane and stop, the next bike does the same and so on. EZ Pass causes a difficulty, whan available we use the Cash/EZ Pass lane, when there is no combined lane, the EZ Pass users run through the tolls then pull up down the road and wait.

Here's is where the perfect ride turned into something else, We arrived and started the procedure, When I got to the booth and handed the collector the money he "Exclaimed with a smile, "Didn't you people get the memo, you're all handing me 5s,10s, and 20s, the toll is only $2.50" (New York put on a special toll for the bikes). Paying I moved up behind the rest to hold, about this time with only 8 or so of the bikes waiting, a NYC Transit Officer told us we could not do this and to get moving. So with a large group still waiting to pay we had to head into Queens, EZ Pass riders joined in, We proceded into the City looking for an exit number, by the time it was discovered the exit number was actually a route number a portion of the bunch had already passed it, the rest jumped lanes in a really ugly move to get to the exit, once in the City the lights broke up the group more and more, bikes were coming in from all directions as we proceded to Northern Blvd and 40th street. Arriving we found the main street and every side road filled with bikes, we were directed by NYPD into a parking lot, and after a while everyone made it in with the Road Captain being one of the last. (exit number issue). This would be the last time we were all together. While parked we talked with other riders and were informed by the PD to tape over over Reg Plates, seems that cameras monitor red light runs and tickets are sent out by mail to the violators, last year there were a lot of tickets mailed and a lot of wasted time by people trying to get it straightened out. The the PD handed out rolls of blue masking tape.
The amount of bikes on hand was staggering, this wasn't Sturgis or Daytona, this wasn't a multi day event, this was a one night run to honor those that had lost their lives. The estimated count was 7000.

The Police and FDNY Rescue 4 (Queens based unit) lead the procession, bikes filtered into the street from everywhere, each jostling for position, we followed, breaking in one or two at a time. We proceded along Northern Blvd to NY25A and across the Queensboro bridge into Manhatten. We dumped out onto East 34th street, from here it's hard to say what the "ride" did, because a large portion of us weren't actually on it. Someone up front made an error and we went from police protected streets to fighting with cabs, speeding through red lights and running the wrong way in oncomming traffic traffic lanes, Horns blareing engines screaming we rode through Times Square, down Broadway across side streets over to West Avenue occasionally you would see a familiar patch, more often than not you didn't. Somewhere along the line we met the now corrected tail of the ride as we merged into a solid wall of bikes heading south on the west side. Sometimes in front of us, sometimes along side or to the rear of us was a Fire Department motorcycle, lights flashing, siren screaming, he kept alot of the cabs and locals at bay as we proceded along. The ride was chaos, it was maddening, it was Great! We finally arrived at Battery Park where we (Club members) pulled over to re-group. With the Motorcycles overheating we made our way up to a barricaded area one block south of Ground Zero, missing alot of our freinds we stopped a NYC motorcop, he said he saw us everywhere,he had seen some of our patches down by the Battery, we confirmed our way out with him, and started calling on phones and CB's to get everyone together as he went off in search of a partner he had lost.

Our group decided to pull up to the Ground Zero Block to see the site, still trying to get a head count and contact those who were elsewhere. Tom was located by cell phone, he and a group of 5 were on the north side of the site at Dey street, he walked down to find us. We never did see the ceremony, I doubt many did, bikes were parked everywhere. the NYC Traffic Police came along and told us to get moving, they were going to start towing all vehicles, it had to be cleaned up before day break. After much discussion, and searching, we were down to one missing bike from Tom's Cell phone list, is was the Jr Road Captain, Chris.

Finally located there was no way to get the two seperated groups together, so Steve Natale told the groups we were heading up two blocks turning left, going to the end and turning right on West Street, West Street becomes the West Side highway, from there it was hoped to regroup and head out of the City, West Side to the Saw Mill River parkway, to the Cross County, to I-287, then back to 95 on the east side of the City at the Connecticut line. This never happend, Tom came over the radio and told everyone not to stop, just go for daylight.

Steve's main group was heading north with Tom's group running to catch up, but the lights weren't allowing it, as a matter of fact Steve's group was getting seperated, When we stopped at the Saw Mill tolls there were 7 bikes, the rest were history,they took the I-95 cross Bronx exit. As Steve said, I-95 in New York (Cross Bronx Expreeway) was a mess. (Thank you Jo), so we left the tolls and headed across the Saw Mill and The Cross County and Hutchinson River parkways with no traffic,plenty of hills, valleys and sweeping curves on brand new pavement, it was fantastic! We stopped for fuel and restrooms at the road side stop, talked for a while then headed on. We lost one bike at the 287/Hutchinson/Merritt split. We proceded to 95 and ran east into Connecticut. We decided at the rest area we would make a food stop at the Greenwich rest area. We pulled in, parked, and noticed a smiling face bopping down the sidewalk towards us, it was dear old Tom, Road Dad, the family was together again. We joined them inside for food. After eating we hit the highway again to head home, riding behind Chris and Old Red, I noticed how much sway that bikes rear end has, the back of that bike wobbles all over the place. We passed through New Haven and into Branford, Old Red started sounding weird, like it was slipping its clutch, the group pulled to the side, Chris faltered, a bike behind locked up its rear in avoidance and skidded all over before stopping. Chris was informed to run ahead and we would follow.

As we rode home I looked at the clock and and started calculating...5am, you should be home at 5am-ish

As I thought about this, a bike broke off , passed the group and took off, Tree, I thought to myself, that was probably a good move by her, she would make better time and had to run further east than the rest of the group, then I thought, wait a minute, I have to do the same, I broke off and chased her down, looking in the mirror I saw another headlight join pursuit, Sandwich. We caught up with Tree (no small feat) and headed home, passed Chris in Guilford, moving along about 50mph, In Groton we waved our goodbyes, Sandwich and myself taking different exits Tree running straight through. I pulled into Norms for coffee, before heading home.

If they have this again next year, I'm going again, But I don't think the Club ride works well in the City, better to go in groups of three, do the run, visit the site, head home and meet up with others for food on the way home to compare stories.

Right off the bat I have to say, the Fujifilm Finepix Z is a terrible Camera for dark photos, The flash is not enough to light up an area and turning the flash off the camera sucks in so much light it blurs the photos, any movement of the camera or the subject results in "Art " Photos

First Stop...F Troop