In the wake of Nicky Hayden’s tragic passing, friends, family and fans of the fallen racer came together for a Ride For Nicky memorial road ride. More than 100 cyclists gathered in Irvine, California on June 28 for a 69-mile road bike ride through Orange County in honor of 2006 MotoGP World Champion Nicky Hayden. #RideForNicky and #PeaceOnTheRoad were themes of the day, as riders made their way through Rancho Santa Margarita, San Clemente, Laguna and back up to Irvine.
The ride was the brainchild of track builder Marc Peters, who sought help from Matt Ford of Rock N’ Road Cyclery and Victor Sheldon of Hammer Nutrition. Peters proved that his course-building skills extend beyond dirt, laying out a scenic and hilly course through Orange County that totaled 69.01 miles. Along with 4100 feet of climbing, it was a challenging 69-miles, something Tommy Hayden agreed his brother would have enjoyed. Tommy joined the lead Ride For Nicky peloton, along with Johnny O’Mara, Jeff Ward, Brian Lopes, Peters, Ford and Sheldon.
“I don’t think Nicky would have wanted it to be easy,” said Ford. “We thought about making it 69 kilometers, which would have been only 42 miles, but we thought, ‘Let’s keep it 69 miles and make this hard. Make it legit. And it was. And I think everybody had a good time and it was a great way for everyone to come together.”
Ride For Nicky Photo Gallery
Riders set off from the Rock N’ Road Cyclery in Irvine, made a stop at another Rock N’ Road shop and had a final pit stop at the Troy Lee Designs boutique in Laguna Beach where Nicky Hayden’s Honda 450 flat tracker was on display, the bike he piloted to the win at the Springfield TT where the Hayden brothers swept the podium.
“I thought everyone appreciated Nicky as a racer and his accomplishments more than the person, and through all this I can say that it seems quite the opposite, which is very, very cool for me and my family to see.” – Tommy Hayden
Donations to the Nicky Hayden Memorial Fund at the Ride For Nicky were rewarded with commemorative water bottles donated by Specialized, and Nicky Hayden riding socks from DeFeet. Red Bull and Monster Energy also joined in the fun, providing food and beverages. Squadra created cycling kits for the lead riders, and Ducati Newport provided a Ducati Scrambler to lead the way for the peloton.
“These things that people have done and came together, I can tell you, has meant a lot to the family,” said Tommy Hayden. “It’s definitely helped us get through this tough time to see all the people that Nicky’s touched and that he was important to. These types of things have definitely meant a lot. For sure this is something that Nicky would have been proud of.”
With only a few weeks to prepare the event, the organizers admitted they kept things modest, given the turnout the Ride For Nicky could have garnered. “We’re really excited with that turnout. We didn’t want to make it too big,” Ford explained. “Obviously we were concerned logistically with having too many people, so that was one of the reasons we held it midweek and at 10am, to kind of limit some access and then make the true fans and true supporters show up.”
“I look at is as more quality and not quantity,” Victor Sheldon added. “I think we had a really quality group of friends out today and that’s really the important part of it. If we decide to do it again, we can try to do a little bit more for the memorial fund; we can grow it year after year to something a little bit bigger.”
At the conclusion of the ride, many were talking about the Ride For Nicky becoming an annual event, something Peters says is a definite possibility.
“I think the next couple weeks we’ll talk with Tommy and the family and everybody and see where we want it to go,” said Peters. “There’s some things that the family were talking about and we decided to regroup and talk about possibly next year… maybe we go to a different location and maybe we keep it in Orange County. We’ll look at all that.”
Donations to the Nicky Hayden Memorial Fund can be made at https://cflfund.net/netcommunity/hayden.
The special Ride For Nicky cycling kits worn by some of the event’s leaders can be purchased at https://custom.zootsports.com/ridefornickymemorialfund.
Chatting with Tommy Hayden
What are your thoughts on today’s Ride For Nicky?
Today was a good day. The weather was great and it was really special to see all these people come out and support an event like this. It was definitely something Nicky would have been proud of, to see people doing something like this in his honor. There’s been some of these things around the world that people [have] done. It’s been very nice to see and it’s meant a lot to our family to see these people making these type of gestures and things. It’s a little bit comforting for us to see that Nicky’s touched so many people in a special way and for people to, on a Wednesday here, to take off work. Everyone’s busy, I know, and to come out and pretty much spend the day doing this in his honor is really cool. I was glad to be here and see everyone. I wanna thank everyone that came out because it was a great day.
You obviously know how popular Nicky is, but it must be amazing to see how much support there has been.
Yeah. It’s been great to see. Honestly for me, this has been a little bit of an eye opener. I thought everyone appreciated Nicky as a racer and his accomplishments more than the person, and through all this I can say that it seems quite the opposite, which is very, very cool for me and for my family to see. I think it can be something positive that people can look at and try to follow in his footsteps.
Today was not an easy 69 miles. Would Nicky have appreciated that? Would he have wanted everyone to suffer a little bit?
Yes, he would have! For sure. He wasn’t afraid to suffer a little himself and he definitely enjoyed watching other people suffer too. He’d always be good to crack a joke after that and to rub it in on the guys that suffered the most.
Nicky Hayden Memorial Fund, what exactly does that include?
At the moment it’s basically just set up to, in events like this and things, a place for the money to go, and then we’re in the process of looking into some different type foundations and exactly how to do the money, what we want to do. We have a few ideas but it’s going to take a little bit of time to get all set up. At the moment this is was an easy thing for us to set up and all the money goes there. We have some really cool stuff planned and some things that Nicky was already involved with a little bit that now we’re going to focus on more. We’ll make an announcement when we take the next step of what we’re going to do.
Ride For Nicky Photo Gallery
