TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WKBW) — The Slow Spokes bicycle club hosted the "Mark Mitri New Year's Ride" — in honor of the group's founder who tragically passed in a garage fire last month.
"Mark always believed we should start the year off with a ride, and so we want to remember Mark and keep his name alive," Noel Dill, the ride director for Monday's route, said.
Mark had been putting on these New Year's Day rides for the past five years. For this sixth year, the group decided to rename the ride to continue his legacy.
"It's a very bittersweet day for us," Dill said. "We miss Mark tremendously, but we want to carry on the way he'd want us to — and this is exactly what he'd want us to be doing."
Rick Mitri, Mark's brother, was one of the cyclists at the ride on Monday.
"He'd be very, very happy and proud," Rick said. "We had a decent amount of people riding on New Year's Day over the years, but nothing like this."
Rick estimated over one hundred cyclists were at the ride.
Slow Spokes was born in 2017, and Dill said its membership has been speeding up.
"Mark started this group Slow Spokes as a way to bring individual people, called 'Spokes,' together, and now we're at 1,800 strong."
The group hopes to carry on Mark's legacy of giving back.
"It was such a tragic loss, but ... we're going to get through that tragedy as a community ...," Dill said.
The idea of community was a running theme throughout the ride.
"We all ride together," Rick said. "The cycling community is a group, is a community."
