I was born in Austin, and lived the first 12 years of my life in the Barton Hills area of South Austin. My Dad died of brain cancer when I was five, and my Mom had to raise my older brother and I on her own. It was tough at times, but she did an amazing job raising us.

She remarried several years later to my stepfather Russell Seguin, a Ph.D chemist turned massage therapist. I had to leave several of my good friends and move 30 minutes North to Pflugerville, but was fortunate enough to still be within practical range of them.

When college application time drew near, the path ahead became uncertain. Nearly every week there seemed a fork in the road which could change the rest of my life irreversibly. I felt I was riding on a Mandelbrot Set. That is a scary and grossly intimidating experience, which will likely occur many more times throughout my life.

I am a bit of a neat freak, slightly weird, very honest, and an optimist.

I love life.

I ride for my dad, who lost his fight with brain cancer on September 21, 1994. Shakepeare has told us that “the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” I hold this statement to be false. I remember wrestling with him and my brother on our parents bed. I remember watching him make fantastic things out of wood in our garage. I remember his bike, which he rode to work several miles each and every day, rain or shine. The yellow trench-coat he donned for the rainy days will never leave my memory.

I ride to keep the torch burning. Whenever I follow in his footsteps, or rather, in his tire path, I soon find I am enjoying myself a great deal.

I sometimes wonder what my life would be like were my father still alive today. So much has been altered so completely. I ride for a future in which cancer exists only in history books.

I also ride for my Grandma, a breast cancer survivor, my Aunt Peggy, my Aunt Pat, and both grandparents on the Porter side of my family.