PLAINFIELD TWP., Pa.- Bruce White is an avid cyclist and has done plenty of bike tours.
But the ride that brought the Fredericksburg, Virginia man to the Lehigh Valley on Monday isn’t like the others. “It’s just very special,” he said. “I’ve led almost 40 bike tours of a week or longer, and nothing compares to this.”
White is the tour director for the 2026 9/11 National Memorial Trail Tour, a 28-day trek that takes cyclists to all three sites associated with the terror attacks of 2001: Arlington, Virginia; Somerset County, Pennsylvania; and New York City. “It’s a history lesson, it’s a remembrance,” said White. “You have a lot of emotional moments talking to people, hearing their stories.”
Bruce White, tour director
The bikers are traveling more than 1,250 miles along the multi-use trail that connects all three places. The tour started on June 13 at the Pentagon Memorial in Virginia and will end at the same spot on July 10.
On Monday afternoon, the group arrived at the Buss Street Trailhead outside Pen Argyl in Plainfield Township and was treated to snacks and refreshments, courtesy of sponsor WM.
The cyclists arrive at the Buss Street Trailhead in Plainfield Township
The 9/11 National Memorial Trail was established by an act of Congress in 2021. According to Adrienne Fors, a community and municipal relations manager for WM, the company was the trail’s first corporate sponsor.
“We want to connect our communities, we want to see them thrive, and so this is one way we can help our communities connect, through the trail network,” said Fors, who is also a board member for the memorial trail’s alliance. “We’re very proud to be a part of this organization.”
12 cyclists are doing the entire ride, and 16 others are doing segments of the route. They hail from eight states and Washington, D.C., and at least a couple of them- like Lynn Donches of Coplay- are from the Lehigh Valley.
While the miles tick by, Donches’ thoughts are with a friend whose fiancé- a first responder- perished during the attacks. “I always think of her, I think of her all the time, anytime 9/11 is mentioned, and so I’m thinking of her the whole time that we’re doing this trip.”
The 9/11 trail is considered a living memorial to the nearly 3,000 people who were killed when hijacked airplanes were used in a coordinated terrorist attack. Two planes were flown into the Twin Towers in New York City, another crashed into the Pentagon, and a fourth plane went down in central Pennsylvania after the passengers and crew fought back against the hijackers.
2026 marks 25 years since the attack. According to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, more than 100 million Americans were either born after 9/11 or are too young to remember the events as they unfolded. Cory White, Bruce’s son who’s also a cyclist making the trek on the memorial trail, was an eighth grader at the time. “It wasn’t necessarily obvious how impactful the event was,” he said, “but I was there for the aftermath, for the rebuilding, for the community getting together. Part of the reason for this trip is to make sure that the people who weren’t alive know about it, and don’t forget what happened.”
Nature hasn’t been easy on the riders so far. Last week, the group endured several days of rain. This week, as they make their way to New York City, they’ll have to contend with temperatures that could hit triple digits. “So we’re going from hypothermia to dehydration all in five days,” Bruce White said.
The cyclists pose for a picture during their break
And yet, he and the others know their hardships on the trail are nothing compared to the horrors that thousands of people were suddenly and violently confronted with on September 11, 2001. More than 440 first responders were killed, including 343 New York City firefighters alone.
Bruce White said it’s something he thinks about a lot. “The thing I fall back on the most is, I’m at the bottom of the stairs, dressed in my 50 pounds of fireman’s gear, and I’m going to run up the stairs, probably going to die to save somebody I didn’t know. Could you do that? And that’s the toughest question for any American to answer.”
For more information about the ride or about the 9/11 National Memorial Trail, click here.