He was gifted his first bike, a Nishiki Olympic-12 road bike for his 13th birthday and the rest is history...Racing became his passion, which he took up in earnest during his senior year in high school...He became more involved in the sport, racing both for his collegiate team at the University of Virginia, as well as his club team based in Charlottesville, Va...He competed in 30 to 40 events per year, and in 1993, he was upgraded to the top amateur level and won the Best All-Around Rider in the state of Virginia...On September of that year, everything changed while riding his mountain bike with teammates in the mountains of central Virginia when he suffered a terrible accident, fracturing his 12th thoracic vertebra...After multiple surgeries, he was left with residual paralysis below the knee...With the encouragement of his colleagues, he began researching Paralympic cycling and soon became classified...He began training and competing right away, joining the U.S. Paralympic Cycling National Team in 2013...Since then, he has made a significant impact on the program and continues to be an important piece of Team USA on and off the track.