As Aurelio Perez traversed plateaus, basins, and mountain ranges over the course of five weeks, he texted friends and family back home a total of 343 names.
It was his way of honoring the firefighters who died on Sept. 11, 2001.
Perez was part of Bay 2 Brooklyn, a team of 13 current and retired firefighters and military veterans from California, who rode their bicycles about 3,900 miles, starting in Santa Clara, for 40 days from coast to coast in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
When Perez got to the last name near the end of the trip, he began to feel a sense of closure.
“After finishing the 343rd one, it was my way of finally feeling like I did something for them,” said Perez, a former firefighter with the Santa Clara Fire Department, who served as a service driver for the team.
On Thursday, as the team of 10 riders and three support drivers approached the South Pool, the memorial site of the World Trade Center’s South Tower, emotions were running high.
“I don’t think you can expect the emotions,” said Dave Lombardo, a driver engineer and EMT with the Santa Clara Fire Department. “I’m still absorbing all of it.”
Lombardo was one of two riders who did this same journey 10 years ago for the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11.
The other, Darrell Sales, who spearheaded that trip and this second one, was Lombardo’s training officer in the fire academy that day in 2001.
While Sales admits a part of the decision to do the ride is to push the limits of how much one can physically endure, it all comes back to honoring their colleagues who perished.
“You kind of set aside —‘I just want to see if I have the stamina to do this,’ more so away from yourself and to give for somebody else,” he said. “It's the sacrifice that goes along with the nature of the job.”
Lombardo, 53, was part of a group of 17 new firefighter and EMT recruits whom Sales and his team had just hired. They were in their last week of testing before heading out on the line, Sales said.
Watching the tragedy unfold with their fire department peers as their colleagues on the other side of the country were called to action, “almost instantly it became this motto of ‘never forget, never again,’ ” said Sales, a retired 29-year veteran of the Santa Clara Fire Department.
“I can't think of a better way to memorialize those who sacrificed for their community than to build community from west coast to east coast,” Lombardo said.
Jeremy Provancher was only 10 years old when the attacks happened. But, as with so many, his life was irrevocably impacted that day.
He later served with the Army in Afghanistan and said he lost friends overseas. He had only retired about five months ago when he found out his dad, a 35-year veteran of the Santa Clara Fire Department, was doing this ride.
Provancher got his first road bike and pedalled about 100 miles on it before embarking on the cross-country ride. Some of the men, including his father Jeff and Sales, trained for a year prior to the trip.
“Just takes a lot of mindset but knowing you're doing it for something else bigger than you — that helps a lot,” said Provancher, 30.
Though spirits were running high as the team reached their destination, the journey hadn’t been easy.
Just the week before, the team experienced some of their toughest ride days, Lombardo said.
“Those tough days are expected, and we all have them,” he said. “But we all pulled through.”
They rode about 100 miles a day, scheduling only three rest days out of the 40 total days of travel.
“We had some sandy trails, water, grit, grime freeways — it’s been through a lot,” said Mike Deleo about his bike that he calls “The Punisher.”
Despite the arduous conditions, all of the bicycles successfully carried the men safely to New York City.
The riders attribute that success largely to the service team that drove alongside them and their firefighter training.
Deleo, a second-generation firefighter, only had to deal with three flat tires along the trip.
“Take care of it just like you would any piece of equipment, just like our fire engines,” said the 27-year fire medic. “We make sure that it’s up and it’s running, check it out everyday and make sure it’s good to go. And it’ll respect you back.”
After taking a moment of silence at the memorial pool, the group headed across the water to the FDNY’s Marine Division headquarters at the Brooklyn Navy Yard for the final act — dipping their bikes in the East River. Members of the FDNY cheered.
“It’s unbelievable — to see this and meet these guys and see how far they've ridden,” said Keith Newell, a firefighter at Marine 6. “We have to never forget what happened and these guys are helping to make sure people don't forget.”
The team rode not only to keep the memory alive of the 343 firefighters who perished, but they also raised money for the Gary Sinise Foundation, a charity for veterans, first responders and their families, widows of 9/11 and the Santa Clara Fire Foundation.
And for Perez, who was in New York City a day before 9/11 and took a picture of the towers almost exactly 20 years ago, this moment was deeply personal.
“I felt like I could have done something, but there really wasn't nothing [I could do]—it wasn't Sept. 11 yet,” he said.
He held on to what he called this “unwarranted guilt” for two decades.
“I felt like I couldn't do anything for them that day, but, finally today, coming here honoring them, honoring their names — it was my way of finally feeling like I did something for them.”