Approach & Expertise

insights from the founder

I’ve spent over a decade doing one thing: preparing athletes’ bodies for the specific demands of their sport. 

I've worked with athletes and "non-athletes" from a diverse variety of sports and athletic pursuits: runners, triathletes, equestrians, surfers, skiers, golfers, field and court sports, and cyclists. I've helped competitive and recreational athletes of every kind. In every case, the work is the same: assess how the body moves, identify what’s limiting performance, and build a plan to improve it.  

After ten years of that work across dozens of sports, one pattern became impossible to ignore. It doesn’t matter what you’re training for, what level you compete at, or how much you’ve invested in equipment. If your body can’t move well, you’ll never reach your potential. The gear, the gadgets, the supplements, the training volume — none of it compensates for a foundation that isn’t there. And the reverse is equally true: when the body is strong, mobile, and functioning the way it should, the competitive advantage is enormous.

I realized a long time ago that you don't just passively "ride a bike". You have to have a body strong enough and mobile enough to control the bike, so YOU don't get taken for a ride. Not having fantastic technical ability on the mountain bike, I'd rate myself mediocre at best, I realized how advantageous it is to be a rider with the strength, ability, and fitness to control my bike. I realized that even though I was far from the best rider on the trail, I was able to outperform many of those technically better than me, and more importantly, enjoy my time on the trail. I noticed a lot of riders only road more, spent more hours on the bike, to try and improve riding. But coming from a background in strength and conditioning, I saw the advantage of off-bike training clearly. I saw a disconnect so painfully clear I noticed abundantly with cyclists.

Serious riders will spend thousands on a bike, invest in riding plans and on-bike coaching, dial in a professional bike fit, and track every metric, but they don't give the body driving all of it the same systematic attention. That gap isn’t a minor oversight. It’s the single largest untapped performance opportunity most cyclists have.

I know because I ride. I’m a mountain biker and a trail runner — an endurance athlete who has raced, trained, and built my own body for what I ask it to do on the bike AND off the bike. I entered cycling with a strong, mobile foundation, and that advantage has shown up on every climb, every long day, and every technical descent. It’s also what made me realize that most riders are experiencing the opposite: a body that’s slowly tightening, weakening, and compensating. When your back hurts halfway into a ride or your knees ache on a decent, or you're worried you can't handle the trail or will be dropped on the climb, you aren't free. You are limited physically and mentally, and the thing you love to do, ride, feels less and less enjoyable.

So how do you ensure that freedom? You build a body that is durable by design. You build the physical components of strength, mobility, and stability specific to the demands of the ride. You start by identifying your physical constraints and limitations so you can improve your performance and reclaim your freedom to ride for years to come.

That's why I built the RIDER Protocol. A comprehensive, scored off-bike assessment across five performance pillars — Range of Motion, Integrity, Durability, Efficiency, and Resilience — that reveals exactly where a cyclist’s body is limiting their riding. Every finding connects directly to what happens on the bike. And those findings become the foundation for a personalized off-bike performance plan that I coach riders though in the gym: the RIDER Roadmap.

I built this because I saw a gap that nobody was filling. I knew from a decade of working with diverse athletes and from my own time on the trail, that the body is the most upgradeable component you own - it is also the only component you can't replace. A strong and capable body does more than just climb better; it secures your independence. By building a resilient physical foundation today, you ensure you have the strength to live, move, and explore, in every aspect of life, on your own terms for decades to come.

That’s what Built for the Bike is founded on. The belief a strong and optimized body is the most important investment you can make: for the ride, and for life. When your body is capable, you have the freedom to choose your line on the trail and your lifestyle off of it. My mission is to help riders do what they love for decades to come - staying strong, staying active, and staying on the bike.