Remember the Removal Memorial bike ride makes its way through Missouri

A years-old Cherokee Nation tradition travels through Missouri for its 14th time since its inaugural event in 1984.

The Remember the Removal Memorial bike ride comes back to the state with riders from the Cherokee Nation and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, spanning "almost 1,000 miles" from Georgia to Oklahoma. The ride follows the path of the Trail of Tears, which relocated Native Americans to reservations in Oklahoma.

Along the trip, the riders stop at different historical sites to honor the Nation's lost ancestors.

When the tradition started, it only included members of the Cherokee Nation, but now also is open to members of the Eastern Band as well. This year, 12 people are making the journey by bike, seven from the Eastern Band and five from the Cherokee Nation. For the first time, the Nation's team is all female.

Bike ride coordinator Will Chavez said, not including rest days, the ride takes 19 days to complete. Chavez said training for the event is a six-month process that starts in December.

A group of Cherokee Nation riders say their goodbyes Wednesday, before starting on their journey along the Trail of Tears.Nathan Gladden

"[The process] starts out in the gym. We go to the gym first. We try to get fit using different techniques with these spin classes," Chavez said. "But then I always tell the team when our bikes arrive in February, usually, there's gym shape, and there's bike shape. So we have to get adjusted to getting in shape for the bike, too."

The group of the Cherokee Nation, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and helping hands along the way, before starting their ride on the Trail of Tears on Thursday.Nathan Gladden

Chavez said for the riders, Missouri is usually the hardest part of the trip.

"Missouri is probably the toughest part because of the hills, the constant hills, and if it gets hot, it's even worse," Chavez said. "Basically, what we train for is Missouri ... because Missouri is always tough on the team."

Chavez said the difficulty of the trip gives the young a lesson on how "resilient" the Cherokee Indians were as people to go through being "forcibly removed" from the land.

"I think the main one [lesson] is that we understand that our people are pretty resilient. When they were forcibly removed, I mean it was almost an attempt to exterminate us," Chavez said. "The way things were done to move us, we were put in camps and held in camps. Many of our elders and children died, just waiting to be moved that summer of 1838, from dysentery and cholera and other diseases."

Chavez has finished the ride twice, the first one in 1984 as a youth and then his second as a mentor in 2017 at the age of 50. When traveling, the riders always have a group they stay together with through their journey. Chavez said the rides allowed him to build relationships with friends he still has to this day.

"I had a four-man team with me, and I just remember, we never would leave each other on the road. We always stay together, encourage each other and somebody would be down one day and the next day be up, so it always worked out where we could take care of each other and help each other down the road," Chavez said.

The first ride in 1984 started with the Cherokee Nation's educational program wanting to find a way to better prepare young people "for life" and "give them more confidence."

"They call it a youth leadership program, to get us, our Cherokee youth to strive for more rather than dropping out of high school, that was going on a lot back then," Chavez said. "So I think it really worked. The people I went with [and] did the first bike ride with. Most of them became pretty successful. We still keep in touch, like 35-plus years later."