The Yo-Pough-Yo Charity Bike Ride will be held on Saturday, June 13, starting at 8 a.m. at both the Empress EMS North headquarters at 10 S. White Street in Poughkeepsie, and the Empress EMS South headquarters at 722 Nepperhan Avenue in Yonkers.
Participants from each location will ride toward each other and meet at Castle Park at 92-198 Pumphouse Road in Brewster for lunch between noon and 1 p.m. The ride is open to the public, but RSVPs are required. All riders must wear helmets.
Ride support volunteers are also needed, including people to drive the two fly cars provided by Empress that will be equipped with hydration and bike racks to pick up riders who encounter issues and cannot complete the ride. Volunteers can sign-up at the RSVP link.
The International Association of EMTs and Paramedics Union Local 20 is providing breakfast for cyclists and volunteers on both sides of the route. Empress will provide lunch at the park.
Paramedic Bill Rothschild is the creative visionary behind the event.
“This is my crazy idea,” Rothschild said. “I had to do some union work out of the Empress station in Poughkeepsie. I finished a shift at 7 a.m., and the meeting wasn’t until 10 a.m., and I thought I would bring my bike and go for a ride on the Dutchess Trail. It’s less than a mile from the Empress base, and it’s fairly flat, and a fairly easy ride.”
He realized the Empress headquarters in Yonkers was also near a bike trail, and that sparked an idea.
“It’s an 80-mile bike ride from Yonkers to Poughkeepsie. I started to think, ‘What if people want to start in Poughkeepsie and go to Yonkers?’ That’s where the Yo-Pough-Yo name came from, is that it starts in both places.”
“Brewster is more or less in the middle between the two,” he continued. “It’s a good-sized park that is a good place to have lunch. The idea just grew over time about having the groups starting at either side and meeting in the middle. Then they can either go back to their starting points or continue to the other station,” he said.
He said it’s a straight shot except for a short section in Brewster where riders have to go on the road briefly to get to the rest of the trail.
As the planning took shape, he realized he needed sponsors and an organization to benefit from it and decided on The National EMS Memorial Service, which is held every summer in Washington, D.C., to honor EMS staff who have lost their lives in the line of duty.
Every rider who donates $25 to participate will be matched three times by Empress EMS, the IAEP (International Association of EMTs and Paramedics) nationally and the Local 20. So each participant will ultimately bring $100 to the cause.
Rothschild said the National EMS Memorial Service is regularly attended by Empress staff.
“A group of people from Empress drive down to the Washington, D.C., area to attend that service, which is free. And as part of that service, there is also a bike ride. We carpool down on Thursday and go on the bike ride on Friday. The service is on Saturday, and we drive back up after that. Anyone is welcome to join us.”
He noted there is a distinction between the EMS Memorial Bike Ride and the National EMS Memorial Service. The service is reserved for people who lose their lives in the line of duty, while the bike ride provides an opportunity to honor any EMS workers who have passed away, regardless of whether they were on duty at the time.
“A bunch of people come and do it. We have a great time,” he said of the EMS Memorial Bike Ride.
Rothschild said he considers his participation in the ride to be a significant factor in helping him maintain the physical fitness needed to keep working as a paramedic for 36 years.
“I was never a serious physical exertion person in the slightest, and discovering the EMS Memorial Bike Ride was a seminal breakthrough moment, to the extent that at my almost 60 years of age, I have enough stamina and physical ability to continue doing the work. I want to spread the word so that in Empress or elsewhere in the EMS community, someone might find out that this is pretty cool,” Rothschild said.
About PatientCare and Empress EMS
Empress Ambulance Service, LLC, a PatientCare EMS Solutions Company, has served the greater New York area since 1985. Empress provides 911 emergency medical services to the City of Yonkers, mutual-aid response throughout the Hudson Valley and holds emergency and non-emergency service contracts with municipalities, hospitals, correctional institutions, and private care providers throughout Westchester County and the Hudson Valley. Additionally, Empress has a growing Mobile Integrated Health (MIH) unit providing out-of-hospital care to patients in those areas. For more information about Empress and PatientCare, visit empressems.com and patientcareems.com.
