Thursday, December 11, 2008

Chad Gerlach is back.


Started off racing when he was a junior, and soon became pro. Raced for many different teams in the 90s and in the early 2000s including Team Mercury and Postal Service. While he was on the Postal Service, he won many races. He raced with Lance Armsrong and Chad didn't really like him at all. Chad even punched Lance in the mouth one day in 1991 because he didn't like Lance's attitude. He got kicked off the Postal Service and a couple of teams after that. All the team coaches said that Chad was uncoachable. Chad states that you don't have to have a coach to stay with the leading pack. If the pack rides away from you, train harder next time so that you could be in the pack next time. His best win was when he was on the Postal Service team, winning the Tour of China. It all went down hill from that.

When Chad was on one of the many cycling teams, his bestfriend and teammate was murdered. That followed to drinking, then drugs, and so on. His drug abuse and drinking abuse put him to live on the streets. He went from being a proffessional cyclist to basically nothing. He had no home, no money; if he did have money, he would spend it on dope and alcohol.

Five years later, Chad amazingly has been sober for a long time now and back into proffesional cycling. He is going to race for Amore & Vita that is out of Italy and his goal is to win Nevada City Cycling Classic. This is an amazing story and I think that every cyclist should read it and I guarantee you will love it!! Chad's story has even been on tv and now it is on Pez Cycling.



Later

1 comment:

MikeV said...

Good article. I was wondering about that Intervention program and which guy it was about. Had a feeling it was about Chad Gerlach. I remember racing against Gerlach at the Tour of Ohio in the late 90's. Heard some pretty crazy stories about him and his team. When he was on Team San Jose in 1992, the team stayed in Rocky River for a short time. They rode and raced with us locals for a week or so.