Ready for a monumental ride

This weekend, Seaford native Michele Walsh Myers will set out on a journey like no other. She is planning to complete a 450-plus mile bike ride from western New York to Seaford.

Myers’s Ride to Remember 9/11 bike tour will pay homage to the many victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, including the five men from Seaford who were killed. Two of them were fellow members of Seaford High School’s class of 1985 — Timmy Haskell and Michael Wittenstein.

Myers, 48, moved to Rochester in 2001, where she is a phys. ed. teacher and is raising her 11-year-old son, Benjamin. Her ride will begin on July 25 at the Iraq and Afghanistan Memorial in Buffalo, which is dedicated to all the men and women who were killed in the two wars since Sept. 11.

The first leg of her trip will be 72 miles, to the Brockport 9/11 Memorial. When the attacks occurred, Myers was working on her teaching degree at SUNY Brockport. The second part of her ride, which will take several days, will be 343 miles, through the Finger Lakes region, through Pennsylvania, and ending at the new 1 World Trade Center.

The mileage of that leg is significant, she said, because it pays tribute to the 343 firefighters who were killed while rescuing people from the towers.

The final portion of the trip will be to the 9/11 memorial at Seaford High School. Myers will ride from the World Trade Center to John J. Burns Park in Massapequa, then ask others to join her for the remaining few miles to the high school, where she plans to arrive at 2 p.m. on July 1.

“I’m kind of connecting the different places that are significant to 9/11, at least to me,” she said of her trip.

Along the way, Myers will be stopping at firehouses and handing out New York City Fire Department patches that she has been collecting. It is a way to thank the men and women of the fire service for their work.

She has been planning the trip for eight months. “There’s been a lot of little piece that I had to put together just to get this going,” she said.

For instance, she will have friends and family members in a support and gear car, which will always be within a few miles of Myers. The car will carry items such as extra tires and tubes, a first aid kit, food and water. She has also had to make sleeping arrangements for each night. One of the planned stops, she said, just happens to be in Haskell, N.J. “Little coincidence things keep popping up for me,” she said.

Myers was in the Seaford High band with Timmy Haskell, who died along with his brother, Tommy, both of the FDNY. She has worn a shirt in their memory at 9/11 memorial races in which she has completed.

To prepare for her journey, Myers said, she rides at least five days a week, and has done more as the date of her department has neared. When she visited her mother in Seaford earlier this month, she did several trips on the Jones Beach bike path.

She also runs, and has hired a personal trainer. All the training will pay off, she said, when she hits the rolling hills of Pennsylvania.

The first major bike ride she completed was 350 miles from upstate Bear Mountain to Boston in 2001. Her riding has improved drastically since then, she explained.

As a phys. ed. teacher, Myers tries to be a role model for her students, and has shown them videos of events she has done, “So they knew I just don’t teach, I actually live actively,” she said.

Besides teaching and bike riding, Myers describes herself as a typical soccer mom. She said she typically visits her hometown about a half-dozen times per year.

She is hoping to raise about $1,000 from her bike ride, which she plans to donate to the Seaford 9/11 Committee. For more information, visit ridetoremember.jimdo.com.