PINELLAS PARK, Fla. — More than 100 veterans and first responders are cycling in the streets of Clearwater and Pinellas Park Thursday morning as part of the Wounded Warriors Abilities Ranch annual "Alive Ride."

The 11-mile cycle ride begins and ends at Quaker Steak and Lube on 10400 49th St. N. in Clearwater.

During the police escorted ride, the group will bike to local schools and businesses so students and community members can cheer them on and really understand what local veterans have endured.

This is the 9th year the cycle ride has taken place, and each year falls near the anniversary of what U.S. Marine veteran Mike Delancey calls his “Alive Day.”

“It’s not the day I almost died, it’s the day of my rebirth…my alive day,” Delancey explained. “It’s the day I gave the grim reaper the middle finger.”

Delancey entered the U.S. Marine Corps shortly after graduating from Pinellas Park High School. During his second tour overseas, he was shot by a sniper while on dismounted foot patrol in Iraq.

“I remember hearing gunfire, and jumping behind like a dirt berm, and firing back and then I couldn’t stand up,” Delancey recalled.

He remembers getting shot and the moments while he waited for his fellow marines to come to his aid.

“Everything just went like a blur until getting loaded on the helicopter. Then I remember the pilot giving me a thumbs up and that’s the last thing I remember,” he said.

Delancey was flown to Al-Asad Airbase where he says he flatlined multiple times. He was then transported to a hospital in Germany before he was flown to a medical center in Maryland, where he remained in the ICU for 41 days. It was while he was in Maryland he says his memory started to return. Six weeks had passed.

“I wasn’t in my feelings,” he said. “It was I need to do this to get better.”

Delancey, now a T-5 paraplegic, had to adjust to life in a wheelchair. He says he can’t move or feel anything below his chest.

“You don’t realize how much you use your core until you don’t have it,” he said.

What helped in his recovery, Delancey says, was connecting with other veterans in similar situations. That’s one of the reasons he started the Wounded Warriors Abilities Ranch, a nonprofit with the goal of getting veterans of all abilities out and active.

The “Alive Day” annual bike ride was the organization’s first event, and one Delancey says he looks forward to every year.

“Just showing the community this is what it means to be a veteran is just a very good feeling for me,” he said.

The ride runs from 9 a.m. to around 10:45 a.m. on Thursday.