Muddy Angels 2008: One Rider's Thoughts from the Road

"Why do you do the ride? I could never bike that far! What's a Muddy Angel? Are you crazy or are you a masochist?"

These are the usual questions that get asked of those of us who ride the 600-mile EMS Memorial Bike Ride from NYC to Roanoke, Virginia. There's only one answer to all the questions; we do it to honor and remember the fallen EMS providers and their families and to remind everyone who sees and hears of us of the tremendous sacrifice that has been made.

This is my third ride. Before my first ride, my friend and partner Doug Martin spent two years talking about taking on the challenge. Since we are always looking for something to do that is physically challenging, a little crazy and sounds like a good time, adding "for a good and needed cause" seemed like the perfect combo.

What we found was much more. We found a tremendous physical challenge, craziness and really good times but also new friendships that will last a lifetime. These are friends who we know understand the level of caring and emotion we bring to our work every single day, friends we miss as soon as the ride is over.

Friday 5/16; New Hampshire to New York City

Made it to the Big Apple! Easy going until we got to lower Connecticut where real traffic kicked in! Ran into rain in Hartford and had it all the way into NYC. Only one close call when someone merging from the on ramp decided to cut across three lanes of traffic. Had to hit the brakes and found that a Subaru loaded with 30 cases of water, Gatorade, bikes and luggage doesn't want to slow too quickly.

Along the way Doug had to stop at all the rest stops for drinks and snacks. I'm not sure what kind of training he's doing for this ride, although he keeps telling me he's carb loading.

Registration was quick once we got into the hotel. Invers Community College Paramedic students are back again to assist with rider support as well as doing the ride themselves! They are the wingmen! Without them this ride couldn't happen!

At the hotel we met two riders from Ireland. It's exciting to welcome riders from other countries for the first time.

The boys form Ireland happened upon the ride when they were making plans to come to the Boston area to see how some of the EMS services in that area worked. Gary and Kerenan come from different areas of Ireland. Gary is from Cork and Kerenan is from Belfast. They were chosen to come over for the observation from a large group of applicants. While they were making their plans a co-worker told them about the National EMS Memorial Bike Ride. They made contact with the organization, got together with Dr. Ted, who provided them with bikes, and the rest is history so to speak. For here they are making this an international event and making the trek with us.

Orientation at 2100, going to learn what the rules will be and the routes we are taking.

Start bright and early tomorrow May 17th, from Jacobie Station (the first EMS station in NYC), pedal across Manhattan and Staten Island to Battalion 23 (the frontier) for lunch, then off to New Jersey.

We met the families of 2 EMT's fallen in the line of duty on 9-11. This is the third year these families have been here to meet us.

I can't even imagine what these families are feeling or what they have gone through in losing a loved one so suddenly! We hope our presence and our commitment to honor and remember provides some consolation for them.

On Sunday May 18th, there is a second group of riders that will be starting from Lexington Kentucky. We will meet this group next Friday outside of Roanoke Virginia, in Salem. From there we will regroup and ride in to Hotel Roanoke together. Along the way we will be picking up more riders. There are many who ride for one, two or three days with us.