Around 300 motorcyclists rolled through Gettysburg this week to kick off the 25th annual America's 9/11 Ride, a three-day motorcade that will carry riders to the Flight 93 National Memorial in Somerset County, the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and finally to a ceremony at the World Trade Center in New York City. The riders gathered in Adams County before setting out on the first leg of their journey to the Somerset County memorial.
The annual ride, now marking its 25th anniversary of commemorating the September 11 attacks, is one of the largest police-escorted motorcycle processions in the country, according to FOX43. For the Gettysburg leg, participants gathered at Battlefield Harley-Davidson before heading west on Route 30 through Lincoln Square toward Somerset County, per Battlefield Harley-Davidson. Bobby Bruner, one of the riders, told FOX43 that supporting first responders is the number one goal of the ride, adding, “Supporting first responders, I can't emphasize that enough.”
A Three-State Trek With Deep Roots
From Gettysburg, bikers were set to head to the Pentagon on Friday before continuing on to New York City, where the group plans to arrive Sunday for a ceremony at the World Trade Center. Other riders are expected to join the procession along the way from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and other states, according to the same FOX43 report.
The tradition traces back to November 2001, when founders Ted and Lisa Sjurseth led 250 motorcyclists from Washington, D.C., to New York City just eight weeks after the attacks, aiming to help boost the city's battered economy, according to Powersports Business. The route expanded the following year to include all three attack sites. Organizers deliberately hold the three-day ride during the third weekend of August rather than on September 11 itself, a scheduling choice that lets riders and first responders also attend official local memorial ceremonies in September, as noted by DVIDS.
From Ground Zero Museum to College Scholarships
Ted Sjurseth's custom Harley-Davidson, painted in an American flag motif and signed over the years by rescue workers along the route, is now permanently displayed at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City, a lasting link between the ride and Ground Zero itself.
Proceeds from the event fund a college scholarship program for children of active first responders. Since its founding, America's 9/11 Foundation has awarded more than 366 scholarships totaling nearly $700,000 to first responders and their children, per the Powersports Business report. The program grants 20 scholarships annually, each worth $2,000, to active EMS personnel, firefighters, police officers or their children, according to Lights Sirens Action EMS.
Volunteer-Run, Police-Escorted
The foundation operates with an all-volunteer board and staff who take no pay, which organizers say allows more than 90 percent of funds raised to go directly toward scholarships and responder programs, according to FOX43's earlier reporting on the ride. Pulling off the multi-state procession still requires motor officers from dozens of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to provide rolling road closures across the route.
That kind of coordination hasn't always come easily. Back in 2016, the ride ran into serious logistical uncertainty when public disagreements broke out between organizers and state police agencies in Virginia and Maryland over rolling highway closures and escort staffing, according to reporting at the time from ARLnow. This year's turnout of roughly 300 riders departing Gettysburg is well below the event's peak, when participation ran between 1,900 and 2,500 riders from 2006 to 2011, and organizers had anticipated around 700 motorcycles nationwide for the 25th anniversary ride, per Powersports Business.
