Chad gerlach where is he now

Despite the latest good news that Gerlach is off the streets, he has plenty of work to do. The mother of his baby has insisted that he enroll in a treatment program if he is to continue to be around his daughter, according to Peter Gerlach. After an article appeared Oct. After the teenage Gerlach mouthed off, Armstrong wrestled him to the ground before other cyclists intervened.

In the midst of the comeback this season, there were already signs that Gerlach did not take his sobriety seriously. After handily winning a crit in Auburn against mostly local and regional pros, Gerlach rode the 45 miles back home with a buddy, stopping along the way for a beer. He finally pinned his hopes on the TV show, which flew Gerlach to Florida and paid for drug and alcohol treatment. He can have a beer. Days before Lodi, Gerlach gave hundreds of fans lining the streets in Davis, California, a glimpse of the talent that had always prompted local cycling enthusiasts to wonder what might have been.

Had he trained and lived properly, many have wondered, might Gerlach have a Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix title to his name by now, instead of racing for entry fees and meal money? In the Davis race on the Fourth of July, Gerlach attacked perhaps a dozen times and was clearly the class of the field, riding away from the pack only to see others bridge up to him but fail to do the work to stay out front.

On the final straightaway, there was Gerlach in full flight at the head of the pack with reigning U. He rode for nearly a dozen teams in a nine-year pro career that ended in with the Sierra Nevada squad based in Northern California.

In his final season, Gerlach finished 10th in a rich one-day circuit race in New York that also included Armstrong as its marquee attraction. He once punched Lance Armstrong at the Olympic training camp. He was smart to get by on the streets. He had a broken ankle and was stabbed a couple of times, but he survived. Not long after his departure from the sport, Gerlach was living on Sacramento streets, often in back alleys behind gas stations and seedy buildings.

He panhandled, turned to drugs and resisted communication and repeated attempts at help from his family. Skip to content. Related Posts How to transport your bicycle with a car. Cyclingnews' Laura Weislo spoke to Amore e Vita's newest recruit about his amazing journey.

Few cycling fans outside of the US will have ever heard of Chad Gerlach, and only a small percentage of the fans inside America would remember him. After all, it's been nearly six years since he raced a bike, and his career before then could be described as rocky at best. It's his life in between then and now which makes his story remarkable. Back in the late 90s, Gerlach was a rider who won races in eight different countries, including two stages of the Tour de Langkawi. But in just a few years he went from being one of the top domestic riders to being homeless and addicted to drugs and alcohol - a life he would lead for over five years.

Nine months later, he had turned his life around and was hired to the Amore e Vita team thanks to his old friend and former teammate Roberto Gaggioli.

Speaking from a year-old Tuscan villa in Lucca, Italy, Gerlach is eager to tell the story of his plunge into "that madness" in hopes that he can inspire others. His outgoing, energetic personality comes across loud and clear over the telephone, and one can easily see why his episode of "Intervention" was one of the most compelling of the season.

At first it kind of freaked me out, because I don't want to be known for being a drug addict. But it's still a story in progress. It's nice to be back, and I want people to know the real me," Gerlach admitted. It's hard to believe the episode was recorded just one year ago - his journey into sobriety began on February 16, - and his turnaround is nothing short of amazing. The "Intervention" production crew visited Gerlach in Italy to film an update to be aired this summer, and wound up filming the team's training camp and the first race - something his team was excited about because of the publicity.

That was really cool that they were here. But Gerlach has some mixed feelings about the idea of being on television again. Even though I was clean when I saw it, I was in total shock about what I was like. It's weird to get sober and then go back and see yourself when your addiction is raging. I was in shock. I lived without any focus. I didn't have any desire. After a couple years of doing that you talk about getting clean, but getting a beer in the morning is more important.

And after you have your first 40oz in the morning you're feeling pretty good and it's like, 'whatever'. Time passes pretty quickly when you live your life like that. Not only months but years. After two or three years you're still saying the same thing. It seemed like an insurmountable task to get out of it. Even though just saying 'I'm going to go to rehab and change my life' is all it takes, when you're out on the street and in that position it just seems like such a hard thing to do.

Gerlach turned to bike racing as a teen after his parents divorced and he began having behavioral issues - serious issues like the arson offense which put him in juvenile detention.

He took to the sport rapidly, and began winning races. While his talents on the bike were undeniable, personality conflicts off the bike became the stuff of legend. A spat with Lance Armstrong at the Olympic Training Center when the two were younger is one story that has been, according to Gerlach, blown out of proportion. As the story goes, Gerlach poked Armstrong in the stomach and called him 'doughboy', but on the Internet, Gerlach became the guy who punched Lance Armstrong'. Lance actually had me around the neck.

I laugh about it because I wonder if he ever gets asked about it. He doesn't know me - he knows of me. He's like everyone else in the sport. The small world of cycling can also cause problems, however. After getting kicked off of US Postal for "personality conflicts" , Gerlach skittered from team to team over the next six years as recreational drug use became an increasing problem.

Gerlach's descent into self-destruction began to pick up speed in when his girlfriend of seven years walked out, and he began experimenting with street drugs. But he hoped to put his troubles behind him when he signed with the Sierra Nevada team for , and hoped to ride out his career there.