Cherokee riders remember

Numerous bicycles rolled into Pea Ridge National Military Park under tired riders who spent more than two weeks pedaling their way down the Trail of Tears. The arrival of the Cherokee bicyclists Tuesday was in remembrance of their forefathers walking that trail 179 years ago.

The Remember the Removal bike ride is a three-week, 950-mile journey through seven states put together by the Cherokee Nation covering the Trail of Tears.

Will Chavez, assistant editor of the Cherokee Phoenix, said he participated in the inaugural Remember the Removal ride in 1984, and he was doing it again this year and reporting from the road via social media.

At the stop in Pea Ridge, he said, the riders were only two days from the finish line, and he was excited to be finishing the ride.

There are better logistics this time around, he said, and technology has certainly improved, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

“It’s been tiring and stressful at times,” he said. “We try to stay together but it’s hard sometimes. Every rider is at a different level of fitness.”

In the three weeks of riding, he said, there are two rest days. But the difficulty, he said, isn’t a downside.

“It means a lot, being one of the first kids to do it back in ’84,” he said. “For the Cherokee Nation, it was meant to help our kids build their self esteem. It still does that, I see it every year.”

One rider Chavella Taylor, 27, came from Cherokee, N.C., to ride. She said the ride provided her with an opportunity to find herself, to explore her history and learn who she really is and where she came from.

It took all the way until the third week, pedaling through Mississippi, she said, before she felt like she had accomplished that.

“All the pain and struggle,” Taylor said, “its just a little bit of what my ancestors went through and I’m starting to understand that more.”

With two days of riding remaining, she said, she was looking forward to getting home again and seeing her family — something that some of her ancestors on the Trail of Tears weren’t able to do.

Tahlequah, Okla. resident Ellic Miller looks at a cannon exhibit at Pea Ridge National Military Park.

Benton County Volunteers Dean Pippin, left, and Curtis Tilghman fire a Civil War era cannon at Pea Ridge National Military Park during a demonstration for riders on the Remember the Removal Bike Ride.

TIMES photographs by Keith Bryant Riders on the Remember the Removal Bike ride enter the Pea Ridge National Military Park. This is one of the last stops before riders wrap up their three-week ride to retrace the route of the Trail of Tears.

Riders on the Remember the Removal bike ride stop and talk after arriving at the Pea Ridge National Military Park June 20.