9/11 Motorcycle Ride

Will Roll Through Town On Sunday

CT United Ride, the annual 9/11 memorial charity motorcycle ride that honors America’s heroes, will pass through Newtown on Sunday, September 7. Last year more than 2,300 motorcycles showed up for the finale at Seaside Park in Bridgeport.

The event will begin at Norden Park in Norwalk at 11:30 am and is expected to reach Seaside Park in Bridgeport around 1. The parade route runs from the park on Route 136 to Route 33 in Westport, to Route 7 in Wilton, to Route 107 in Georgetown, to Route 58 in Redding, to Route 302 in Bethel.

The group will follow Route 302 into Newtown and then turn onto Route 25 and head toward Monroe, following Route 25 to Main Street Trumbull, to Old Town Road, to Park Avenue in Fairfield, and continuing into Bridgeport and straight into Seaside Park.

Bridgeport’s Fire Rescue 5 will lead the motorcade. Police in each town have been enlisted to stop traffic at all intersections, ensuring that the riders stay in one large group and avoid red lights.

Requested donation is $25 for each rider, and another $25 per passenger. A donation is required to ride in the escorted line.

Food and drink will be free for the first 2,000 riders to register for the event, and American flag bandanas will be given to the first 1,000 to register.

Proceeds from the first year’s ride was for New York City firefighters and police officers, but since that time the ride has expanded its beneficiaries to include Connecticut firefighters and law enforcement along with two United Way agencies.

Watch For Them

For those who cannot participate in the ride but want to cheer for and/or wave to the riders as they follow their route, the group is expected to reach Newtown right around midday.

The route, as mentioned above, will follow Route 302 from Bethel right into the center of town, then turn right onto Route 25 and go straight out to Monroe. Fire departments in each city and town along the route have been invited to hang American flags from the ladder of a fire engine. Newtown Hook & Ladder and Sandy Hook fire companies have combined their efforts in past years, setting up a flag on South Main Street near Amaral Motors, and Botsford Fire Rescue also hangs a flag over the route just outside its firehouse at 315 South Main Street.

According to Fred Garrity, the director of Sunday’s ride, the motorcycles should be arriving in Newtown from Bethel on Route 302 between 12:15 and 12:30, and then turning onto Route 25/South Main Street from Route 302 between 12:15 and 12:45.

“This is a 60-mile parade motorcade, so it’s fluid every year within the windows of time,” Mr Garrity said last week.