N.Y. Firefighters End Cross-Country Bicycle Journey at Pasadena Station

It wasn’t Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. It was just Dan “Pappy” Rowan, a 46-year-old firefighter stationed in the Bowery, saying, “I got a vision.”

Sunday in Pasadena, five New York City firefighters, led by Rowan, ended a cross-country bicycling homage to their fallen comrades, 35 days and 2,900 miles after they began it at the wreckage of the World Trade Center.

The vision Rowan had after weeks of picking through the rubble was a firehouse-to-firehouse tour of appreciation for those who pitched in to help after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It became a spiritual sojourn, traveling revival and fund-raiser for the men from Engine Co. 33 and Ladder Co. 9.

Those units, housed together on Great Jones Street in Manhattan’s Bowery neighborhood, were the first to respond to the attacks on the World Trade Center, and together, they paid the heaviest price, losing 10 men.

“We’re not politicians. We’re not movie stars. We’re not rock stars,” a hoarse-voiced Rowan told about 250 well-wishers in front of Pasadena’s Old Firehouse on West Dayton Street. “We’re everyday firefighters.”

The five riders--Rowan, Salvatore Princiotta, Drew Robb, Gerard Dolan and Matt Hornung, helped along by fellow firefighter Ralph Perricelli driving a support truck--were not treated like everyday firefighters.

First, Cannondale donated sleek racing bicycles, painted red, white and blue, with “9/11/01” stenciled on the forks. Then, Rowan’s sister-in-law talked Disc Marketing in Pasadena into organizing the publicity.

Soon, they had a Web page. A motor home and a pickup truck joined them through 19 states, where scores of firehouses outdid themselves with hospitality.

Although not aiming to raise money, the riders often were overwhelmed by donations, which tallied in the thousands of dollars and will be passed on to funds for relatives of firefighters killed in the attacks.

“I wish it wouldn’t end,” Rowan said of the ride. “We’ve touched so many people, and so many people have touched us.”

Rowan’s cross-country vision was sketchy at best when they started out on Veteran’s Day, two months to the minute from when two passenger jets were slammed into the towers. Rowan had plotted firm stops only through Kentucky. And only Rowan, who has competed in triathlons, had any serious cycling experience.

The plucky platoon improvised and persevered. When they detoured a day and a half to avoid snowstorms in New Mexico, they made up for it with a few 100-mile-plus days. They got through the windy Texas panhandle with help from cyclists from the Houston Fire Department, who gave the clipped-vowel Bowery boys some linguistic lessons.

“I learned to use ‘y’all,’ and the plural of y’all, which is ‘all y’all,’ and I learned what ‘yon to’ is,” Rowan said.

When the five didn’t have a good stopping point between Phoenix and Blythe, the Lake Havasu City Fire Department circled a half-dozen recreational vehicles, lighted a bonfire and set up a hot tub for them a mile from Exit 53 of Interstate 10.

Still, stopping in Oklahoma City, at the memorial to the attack on the Murrah Federal Building, was the toughest moment since Sept. 11, according to Robb.

“It was just a horrible reminder of the sort of things people waste their energy on,” Robb said. Riding for 35 1/2 days, he said, was a better way to expend energy.

“There were thousands of people helping us,” Robb said. “It’s not as hard as it might seem.”