23rd Annual Firefighters Memorial Ride
May 28, 2027 – Jun 5, 2027 · 8 AM · Cleveland, Ohio
About this event
Most firefighter memorial rides honour the men and women who died in a burning building. John "Kiks" Kikol started this one in 2005 partly to draw attention to the other deaths — the cardiac events and the job-related cancers that kill firefighters long after the fire is out, and that rarely get a procession of their own. He is still president. The ride has raised more than $300,000 for Ohio families of the fallen and for scholarships, five of which are announced at the finish each year.
It begins at the Cleveland Firefighters Memorial on the lakefront, beside the Great Lakes Science Center, with a ceremony at which families of the year's dead speak. Then somewhere between five hundred and seven hundred and fifty bikes roll east through Euclid and Willoughby Hills, drop into the Chagrin Valley at Gates Mills, and finish at a dealership in Bedford Heights. It is escorted and slow, and any machine will do.
What stays with people is the flags — a column of motorcycles and American flags with the public standing out on the kerb to watch it go past.
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