Who we are.

By the age of twelve, my ripe young imagination had already been shaped by two quite foreign, proto-mythic Hollywood icons – James Bond and Bruce Lee — disciples of lethal action, power and cool confidence. I fell deeply in love with this new, exotic perspective, and immediately gave up team sports like Little League and church basketball to enroll in a Saturday morning JUDO class at a local YMCA. Within a couple of transformative years, I earned a brown belt – and, more importantly, found my tribe. My instructors were cultural purists: a formidable husband-and-wife team, both ex–US Marines who had completed extended tours in Okinawa during the Vietnam War. Training was traditional and uncompromising – strict discipline paired with thoughtful, precise rigor. We practiced ZAZEN meditation and responded to commands in Japanese. Technique and inner stillness became inseparable. Later, as a young man, I practiced Okinawan ISHINRYU KARATE, a more pragmatic, self-defense-oriented fighting style, with tournament exposure, again under an ex-Marine sensei. At barely eighteen, I traveled to Japan itself and began studying AIKIDO at a remote US Air Force base in Aomori Prefecture – one of the snowiest regions in the world. At the time my job seemed fairly unremarkable, but the surrounding nature and Japan’s utter reverence for it left a lasting imprint that continues to shape my life to this day. Over the years I’ve explored and often cycled through many storied Japanese prefectures – Akita, Aomori, Chiba, Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Hokkaido, Hyogo, Ibaraki, Kanagawa, Kyoto, Mie, Miyagi, Nagasaki, Nagoya, Nara, Niigata, Okinawa, Oita, Osaka, Saga, Shiga, Tokyo, Wakayama, Yamagata, Yamaguchi and so on – experiencing the country not as a visitor, but through sustained physical engagement. As an entry-level student of Zen Buddhism, I am fascinated by the sudden renewed interest among modern Japanese youth with KYUDO, the ancient art of longbow archery – an elegant discipline where breath, posture and intention converge. Hitting the bullseye is far from the point. These intrepid journeys have informed my creative work as well, including several film pitches about Japan and a nonfiction book-in-progress, The Hidden Middle, which chronicles my life-changing bikepacking expeditions. In sum, I have never felt more clear, empowered or free than when cycling in backcountry Japan. It is my superpower. I now believe it's possible that endurance cycling offers many of the same benefits as a compelling ZAZEN practice – discipline, presence, ego dissolution – but with motion, joy and expected positive health outcomes. A cycling pilgrimage in Japan may appear to some as straightforward, even ordinary, yet when paired with intentional physical and mental practice and the inherent sustainable-practice worldview that comes along with the sport, it manifests something quietly radical. Taken together, these pursuits – and the life that shaped them – form the foundation of Zen Cycle Co: a belief that movement, place and discipline can align the mind and body in a way that is both ancient and urgently modern.