Living to be Free and Free to be Living.

At a very young age I was interested in the joy and freedom that bicycles brought people. When I was 12 years old my family and I  moved from the suburbs Southern California to the suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio.  In Ohio we drove cars everywhere, and bicycles were a means of keeping up with my Dad training for a marathon, or getting to a friend’s house. I first noticed my  love of bicycles when I got my first job at the local Bike Rental in Loveland, Ohio. People would travel from out-of-state to rent a bicycle and enjoy the Little Miami Scenic Trail, a 78 mile continuous paved path along an old railroad grade. Throughout my 8-years at the Bike Rental, I worked with families and individuals of all ages, novice cyclists and enthusiasts. In general, people just trying to do something fun and healthy outdoors no matter their size, age, color, or ability, in a place, unlike California, with very few outdoor recreational spaces.

The Bike Rental gave me a taste for small businesses. While pursuing a bachelor’s degree in history at the University of Cincinnati I worked as the operations manager at a family owned bicycle shop, called Cycle Sport. This job reaffirmed my strong interest to work for myself one day by combining my passion for bicycles with my organizational and writing skills.

This dream became a reality in 2011 when my partner at the time and I opened Swallow Bicycle Works, a 1,500-square foot bicycle shop in Loveland, Ohio specializing in maintenance, bicycle sales and custom builds, bicycle fitting, and equipment outfitting. I attribute our success to the personal relationships we developed with our community and the rides we hosted and shared throughout Southwest Ohio. I am proud to have helped inspire so many people to pick up gravel riding as an alternative to the race-centric culture that existed in the region at the time.

In 2015 my partner at the time and needed to make a change in our lives, so we closed our bicycle shop, moved out of our house, and embarked on a 5,000-mile ride across the United States of America on dirt roads. The route we followed is called the Trans-American Trail, or TAT, and is traditionally traveled by dual-sport motorcycles or 4-wheel drive vehicles. At about the same time gravel riding and bikepacking where becoming popular in the cycling industry.

I realized on the TAT adventure that I would rather live to be free than work to live. I wanted to continue to travel and share my experiences from the road through photos and stories, so I kept riding and living nomadically.

For the past 5 years I have ridden my bicycle around the world. Things are always changing for me with this lifestyle, sometimes I’m living on my bicycle for months at a time, sometimes I live in a vehicle, and sometimes I stay put in one place for a while by staying with friends and family. I support myself through sponsors and stories and am constantly looking for new opportunities where I can leverage my organizing, planning, communication, and analytical thinking skills to plan an adventure combined with my  adaptability and endurance to document an experience and convey a compelling story.,