Keeping this promise will require stamina.

Even veteran athlete Mark Mhley, who has completed multiple Ironman triathlons, worries that pedaling 198 miles over steep winding country roads that cross the mountains between Washington, D.C., and the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Somerset County, will be a stretch.

Mhley, 44, of Annapolis, Md., said he and several friends—all avid cyclists— took about a year to chart the route for this year’s inaugural 9/11 Promise Bike relay.

“It’s very hilly. That’s why we split it into a relay. We now have relay teams of two to three people signed up to tackle it,” he said.

Mhley and James Baden, 29, also of Maryland, worked together to organize the bike relay. The two previously participated in the Promise Run.

The riders will leave the Pentagon on Sept. 9 and arrive in Bedford the evening of Sept. 10 before a short trip to Shanksville on Sept. 11. The relay is a spin off from the 9/11 Promise Run.

The run, now in its fourth year, covers 240 miles from the Pentagon Memorial to Ground Zero over three days. Mhley said it is an effort to honor and remember the first responders who gave fearlessly on Sept. 11, 2001, and honor those who continue fighting.

Over the last three years the Promise Run has raised $150,000 for charities serving veterans and first responders.

Starting this year, funds raised by the run and the associated cycle tour will benefit scholarships for qualified children of first responders and military service members who have been killed in the line of duty or injured and are unable to hold employment.

Those participating in the run and the tour paid a $100 registration fee and have committed to raise $1,000 for the effort by Oct. 1.

The first scholarships are scheduled to be awarded in the 2020-2021 school year.

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