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The other day I drove north into a small town called Helen, GA. It’s a small German town in the mountains of Northern Georgia. The goal for the day was to get some good training in, riding for a few hours constantly going up and down in the mountains. I had been to Helen a few times before and found some great routes to ride and met some interesting people, but on my drive up this time, I could tell something was different. On the road I noticed that an excessively large number of people were driving the same car as me (I drive a VW Rabbit). I have noticed a fair amount of people with this car as I just drive around town as it is, but on this day, there were literally lines of 4-5 cars that were all VW Rabbits or VW GTI’s and many of them were very customized. Of course, I thought this was awesome because it made me think that I definitely purchased a really good car. Though I just assumed it was coincidence that all the GTI’s and Rabbit’s were out that day. When I got up the hill and into town I drove to my standard parking lot, which is right behind the Helen Welcome Center. The lot is free to park in and has always been completely empty (maybe one or two cars were ever parked in the massive lot), so I have always had the option of going to the back corner and parking right under the only large tree in the lot to keep my car in the shade. To put another twist on the day, though, when I arrived at the lot it was almost full of cars and even a couple semi’s.

Eventually, I learned that there was a German car show going on that weekend, and that the city was going to be essentially overrun by people that own Volkswagen’s, Audi’s, and BMW’s. The guy explaining all this to me started checking out my car and asking me about it, super stoked that it was the one I decided to purchase and then began rattling off a list of modifications I could make to it if I so desired. To be honest, I really don’t have much intention of doing much to my car since I like it as is and there are other things I would prefer to spend my money on, but it was really cool to listen to some dude I randomly met take 20mins of his time to talk to me about all that stuff.

Eventually I made it out to ride my bike, and for that 3 ½ hours I was able to think about things, sorting out my thoughts and that is when I decided I should write a blog. I realized that having that type of encounter isn’t all that uncommon in my life and I think it would be really cool to get those stories out so the details don’t get lost, and I can pass them on to others.

In addition to sharing those stories, I also want to be able to keep people up to date with where I am, what I have been up to, how racing is going, what’s happening with diabetes, etc. A common question I get from friends and family is, “where are you off to next, Alex?” or “where all have you been recently, Alex?” so hopefully through this blog, I will be able to keep everyone informed with what’s going on so when we are able to sit down and chat, much more ground can be covered.

On the side of the page, there is a profile section that describes me very briefly so if there is actually anyone I do not know reading this, they can understand it a bit better. Being that this is the first post, however, I feel like it might be fairly important to go into a little bit more detail.

Currently I am doing everything I can to fulfill the dream every young boy has of becoming a professional athlete. I am in my first year of cycling professionally with Team Type 1 – Sanofi-aventis and I enjoy every minute of it! Since I was really young, I have always been really competitive. To me, everything was a competition (just ask my cousins and sister…I never wanted to let them win at anything!) so being able to compete in sport for a living is definitely a dream come true. In addition to the competitive aspect though, I am fortunate enough to be able to travel all over the United States and even the world to compete in various bike races. It is so cool to be able to visit different cultures and see the different way people live. I have already learned a lot about people and the world and this is just the beginning for me. There are still a lot of places to see and a lot more people to meet!

Also, as the profile on the side says, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in January of 2001. It is a huge part of my life. Obviously it has to be a big part in the sense that if I don’t take care of it, I will run into numerous complications such as blindness, kidney failure and nice long list of other things I never want to deal with. But aside from the nasty side of it, using diabetes and cycling has been a great way to talk to others and point out that through proper management, it shouldn’t stop you from working toward your dreams. In high school I went through a bit of a “rebellious teenager” stage where I didn’t take care of my diabetes at all and it took a good friend of mine (who also has type 1) to show me that if the condition is managed I can follow my dreams, and him I became a part of Team Type 1 and was able to fulfill my dream of being a pro cyclist.

A big goal of mine is to be able to help as many children and people that I can who are dealing with diabetes (or even some other condition) and hopefully motivate them to take care of themselves and work toward their dreams. I was fortunate to have someone do that for me so now I suppose it is time for me to pay that forward.

I realize that this is probably a bit of a long post, thank you for reading this far! I hope you enjoyed reading this and will come back for future posts! It would be greatly appreciated if you could sign the guestbook or leave a comment and let me know what you thought! I am new to this whole blogging thing so I am definitely open to suggestions on ways to make it better or to find out if there is something that you want me to post about more frequently than other things. So again, please sign the guestbook or leave a comment, whether you are a good friend, an old friend from high school or someone I haven’t been fortunate enough to meet yet. I would love to know that you checked out this site!

Until next time!