I didn't discover endurance cycling until I was 35, when I signed up for Seattle to Portland and was immediately hooked. Group rides quickly turned into friendships with local road racers, who convinced me to give racing a try. I loved it, and before long soccer and softball had been pushed aside, because apparently I needed another sport that took up an unreasonable amount of time.

After a season of trying to figure out training on my own, I set my sights on Masters Road Nationals and hired a cycling coach. I went from Cat 5 to Cat 2 in two seasons and found myself racing in the Pro/1/2 peloton, sometimes standing on podiums alongside professional riders and world champions. That experience taught me a lot about training, racing, nutrition, tactics, bike handling, and teamwork, but probably the biggest lesson was how much faster we can learn when we have someone helping us make sense of what we're doing.

Racing is only part of my relationship with cycling. I've spent years doing adventure rides, bike camps, unsupported centuries, long days with friends, and trips through the West Coast and beyond, including Tuscany and Mallorca. I've also been riding road bikes off road since before we called it gravel, and I still have a soft spot for taking 25mm tires places where 25mm tires are clearly not the correct choice.

I race less these days, but I'm still a serious athlete, and I still love to train. I like having something to work toward, seeing what happens when months of consistent work come together, and being fit enough to say yes when someone proposes a hard group ride, a ridiculous route, or a very long day on the bike.

Off the bike, I enjoy cooking, home projects, and traveling the world with my wife. I spent six years on the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association board of directors and currently serve on the executive board of One Tail at a Time PDX dog rescue. Our rescue pup Dracula also has an athletic résumé: she appeared in Puppy Bowl XVI.

My coaching philosophy

I believe coaching is a partnership in learning. I want the athletes I coach to become students of their sport and students of themselves. Being a student of the sport means understanding what your goal actually asks of you; a road race, gravel event, fondo, and big adventure ride may all involve pedaling a bicycle, but they reward different combinations of fitness, skills, pacing, tactics, fueling, and decision-making. Being a student of yourself means learning how you work as an athlete. How do you respond to training and recover from it? What motivates you? What helps you stay engaged when training gets hard or life gets complicated? How do you respond when conditions change or things don't go according to plan? Data gives us a baseline and helps us understand how you're absorbing the work, while your experience adds another layer to the picture. Over time, we look for patterns in all of it: what helps you adapt, what gets in the way, and what brings out your best.

My job is to help connect those two things, matching what your goals demand with what we're learning about you as an athlete.

I'm also a big believer in consistency over perfection. Missing one Tuesday interval session probably isn't going to make or break your season, while committing to months of smart, purposeful training is the difference between showing up wondering if you've got it and showing up knowing you've done the work, you've got gas in the tank, and you're ready to use it.

When we work together, I want you to understand why we're doing what we're doing. My goal isn't just to make you stronger and faster, but to help you become a more capable, confident, and complete athlete.....and enjoy the process of getting there.