Written by 17:24 Pro Cycling Story

Making My Own Way

Photo credit Thomas Kirch

It was time to get a real job. I got one with Price Water Coopers. Mentally, it was tough to accept that my career as an athlete was over – before it really started – and now I had to sit in an office all day. 

All I wanted to do since I was a kid was to be an athlete. I didn’t really care what sport it was. But I wasn’t an athletic kid more a chubby one. HAHA

I started playing basketball at 6 years old. I played for over 20 years. By the time I was 16, I dreamed of becoming pro. When I was 19, I realized just couldn’t get there. I made it to the semi-professional third league in Germany and that’s as high as I got. 

So, at 21, I decided I had to concentrate on my studies. I did economics and some psychology and graduated when I was 25. 

Now I had to get a real job. 

I started at PWC and I bought myself a bike from one of my first paychecks. I was a big basketball guy, 1,90m tall, weighing about 93kg’s and knew nothing about cycling. On my very first ride, I didn’t pump the wheels hard enough and after 10 kilometres, I had to call my then- girlfriend to fetch me because I had a double flat. Both wheels. Brilliant start.

I was still playing basketball and was captain of my team in the fourth league at this time, just as a hobby and earning a little bit of money from it. Then I started riding more. My basketball coach wasn’t too happy because I started racing a bit too. 

I did my first MTB race, a local cross country series. They pulled me out of the race after getting lapped a second time. I still remember the day, I was wearing a “Livestrong” jersey. People were laughing at me. I was this huge guy showing up to become a cyclist and I couldn’t finish a local race. 


I don’t know why but I didn’t really care. I was determined. 

Suddenly, I decided to hang up my basketball sneakers from one day to the other. I wanted to be a bike racer. My basketball friends were not happy. I was giving up a sport after 20 years to start a new one I knew nothing about. They told me I was crazy. 

You will not be a racer, you’re 26 years old and you weigh over 90 kgs. 

At the same time, I was moving up the ranks at work quite quick. The company was demanding more of my time. It meant I had to train at 5 am before work. Then I would ride my bike to work after training and I would run in my lunch break. I was obsessed.

I would do these super long hours on the weekends to play catch up. 


After less than one year of committing to cycling, I won my first ever road race. Marc “legend” Pschebizin,10 time winner of the famous Inferno triathlon in Swiss spotted me and said I have talent but I have to be smart about my training. He told me if I continue to pack in too much training, I will do more damage than good. 

I was strict with my training. For half a year, I ate the same thing at dinner. Quark and 15 nuts…every single night. I started to look less like a basketball player and more like a cyclist. 

I started to prove that I could race at a local level even with a 50 plus hour a week working schedule. 

Three years later I won the same cross-country series overall that I was lapped in. 

A few days after another cross-country training race, I’d just got off the phone with one of my best friends. We had a gym session planned and he was coming over to my place to get me. 

As soon as I got off the phone, I started feeling dizzy. Everything was extremely loud. I thought I’d have a quick shower and everything would be OK afterwards. I looked in the mirror and was completely shocked. It’s hard to explain, but I didn’t recognise the person I was seeing in the mirror. 

I didn’t know who I was looking at. 

I had the shower and tried to sing something but no words came out. I couldn’t form any words while the water from the shower sounded so loud like I was in the middle of a big storm. 

My friend arrived and I just managed to open the door. I was naked with just a towel around me and he thought I was joking by opening the door naked –this is my kind of humour haha.

Luckily for me, he was a paramedic when he was younger and realised something serious was going on, so he directly called the ambulance. When having a stroke, it’s essential that you get help fast. Every second can make a big difference. 

I’m having a stroke?? What???

Man, I’ve got Goosebumps as I’m telling this story. 

I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move my body but my mind was completely normal apart from feeling very overwhelmed. I was sitting on the couch and he brought me clothes to dress me before the ambulance arrived. I thought where has he found this underwear, I don’t recognise it and it’s really uncomfortable. Meanwhile, it was mine. 

The paramedics arrived and gave me blood thinners. They put me on a stretcher and took me into the ambulance. On the way to the hospital, I could start saying single words again. 

I’ll never forget the moment four doctors walked in and told me I’d just had a stroke. 

They said we’re not sure if your left side of your body will ever feel the same again. We’ll be honest with you, the percentage of brain damage is quite relevant. 

Some people have smaller strokes for a few seconds and they’re never the same. My system was completely down for 30 minutes and the damage was high. 

In the hospital, while recovering, I had a lot of time to think. I thought about the moments I’ve been the happiest in my life and it was always on the bike. I’m not talking about victories and successes, but just the fact that it allowed me to continue being an athlete and living out the passion I have for cycling. 

I started very late in the sport at almost 27 years old and still had some kind of talent to make something from it and become a MTB Marathoner on the UCI MTB Marathon Series. I took it for granted, coming to the sport so late and becoming good at it. For sure I worked my ass of for it.

 
I was determined to get back and never take one day for granted. 

I know it sounds like a cliché but I had to be patient and take things one day at a time. It was not about racing or performance it was just about getting back on two wheels. Back to the life I was used to live. I love the process of hard work and building up, this was the lowest low I ever had and I was unsure if I could make it out again,

I was drained mentally, during my recovery. 

I had to find the energy to get out of bed each day. I had to force myself to get back into a rhythm, training two hours a day. Forcing myself to do long hours on the bike. It was hard, but I pushed myself to find the motivation. Everything in my life was different but on the bike I felt free again. It was by far the hardest time of my life, changed me and made me the person I am today.

One year later, I qualified for the World Championships to represent Germany in MTB Marathon.

Coming back from the stroke to race at a top-level again isn’t my biggest achievement in life. My connection to cycling is much deeper than that, it was my way back to life. My therapy. Every single pedal Stroke. Strokeback.

The doctors had no words. 

I’ve had the privilege last year of doing some talks to other young people who’ve had a stroke. I really want to encourage other guys who’ve been through this. 

I genuinely know how lucky I am to have recovered almost fully but I think part of it is because I like to do things differently and adapt quickly to the person who I am today. Cycling is a quite traditional sport and many people will come to you with negative messages like you’re too old to start, you’ll never make it. There will always be doubters, haters and naysayers, but these guys are in that corner for a reason. Don’t get me wrong, there are big guns in this game and I am not one of them. But I am still improving every year and will see how far I will come.

I still can remember lying in bed with my twin brother during a holiday in the Netherlands as kids watching the Tour de France and reading the same issue of bike sport news over and over again, dreaming of living that life.

What I want to say to other survivors and people who start so late is, you have to find your own way. Don’t stop dreaming. When people say you can’t, don’t listen. 

They’re saying you can’t for many reasons but it’s important to do things your way. 

I’m not saying you must be naïve to your limitations, but you have to find something that makes you happy and willing, to work hard and make

you jump out of bed every morning.

Cycling makes me happy. I wake up every day now happy like a kid on Christmas and never take a day for granted. I thought after the stroke that this feeling would go away after one or two years but it hasn’t. I am so grateful for my life. I’m not saying that when I go do 5 hours in the pissing rain that I am happy all the time, haha but in general, I’m so lucky and thankful that I can do what I’m doing. 

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Last modified: Aug 4, 2020
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