Why I do what I do

Being this is my first post, I would like to share the reasoning behind the creation of "My adventure to the top." It was created to share my day to day life as a cyclist with dreams and expectations of taking it to the top level of my sport.

So I will start off by telling the story of how cycling found me.  Even though I have only been cycling for a little over a year, it has been something that interested me for years. I remember the first time my dad took me to the Tour of California to the finish of stage 2 in downtown Santa Rosa. Listening to Dave Towle motivate the crowd as we all waited in anticipation for the peleton to fly into the streets of Downtown Santa Rosa, is and always will be one of the most memorable experience of my life. It was the first time I witnessed a professional bike race. Watching the pack of riders storm through the finishing straight I thought to myself "How can these guys go so fast?" From my prospective, as a thirteen year old, they looked like gods. Tan, skinny, and ridiculously fast gods. And that is exactly what I wanted to be.

From that day forward, my biggest concern was getting a road bike. Every Christmas and birthday I would ask for a road bike. Unfortunately, my family got hit by the recession really hard. So getting a bike wasn't as easy as it sounded. Lucky for me, my dad was a cyclist. At the time he wasn't riding as frequently, so he let me ride his road bike for the time being. Even though it was 2 sizes to big for me, it didn't matter. It was perfect in my eyes. Every weekend I went out and road into the back roads of Sonoma county. Eventually, I met up with this group called the Petaluma Wheelmen. They taught me so much on  just the basics of cycling. So when I told them that I wanted to start racing, it seemed like they knew exactly what to do with me. They handed me over to this team based out Santa Rosa for juniors called Team Swift. This is where the fun really began.

My first race was the local Tuesday Night Twilights at the Santa Rosa fairgrounds. I raced in the juniors race with about ten other juniors, the majority of them on Team Swift. It was a huge eye opener for me. I was pushed to me limits the entire race. I ended up getting 5th, but I felt accomplished. It was my first race and I finished it.

Ever since that race, cycling became my life, my lifestyle, who I am, and what I do. And there is nothing that has made me think otherwise.