For the second time in his life, Andres Pertierra has been uprooted because of a hurricane.
“I’m having to rewrite history for myself. I’m starting over at 50 years old and I’m going to do it with a happy face and energy,” Pertierra said.
In June, Pertierra arrived in Williamsburg to start a new life after hurricane Maria devastated his home in San Juan, Puerto Rico, last fall. His wife, Cindy, came to Williamsburg about eight months ago on her own to start preparing a new life for her family by working as a personal trainer at Studio A Fitness.
After nearly nine months of being separated, and living for the past four months without electricity or running water, two weeks ago Pertierra was finally reunited with his wife.
“That was the hardest part, being separated,” he said. “She’s my best friend and we’ve been together nearly every day for 29 years. But when you’re put in a situation like this, you do what you have to for your family.”
‘Problems come in buses’
But this isn’t the first time a hurricane has caused Pertierra to move to a new location to help his family.
In 1989, Hurricane Hugo hit Puerto Rico as one of the strongest hurricanes in Caribbean history, according to the National Weather Service. Pertierra was working as an aerospace engineer in the United States when his dad called him to ask for help with the German-themed family restaurant back in Puerto Rico.
Pertierra came to help his family and found a few months pass, and then a few years and before he knew it, he was running the family business.
Before hurricane Maria hit, his father passed away and his mother developed Parkinson’s disease. The business eventually became less profitable and Pertierra had to make the tough decision to close his family restaurant after 53 years of business.
“When you go through something like this, everything happens at once,” Pertierra said. “We have this saying back home, ‘Problems come in buses.’”
But for Pertierra, he made the best of a difficult situation and decided to continue his intense passion for cycling.
As a young boy, Pertierra remembers always being on a set of wheels, riding through the mountains of Northern Spain. As an adult, he and his wife pursued a life of fitness, and Pertierra eventually began focusing on cycling, starting a new safety and training-oriented cycling program, PowerCad.
In Puerto Rico, the program was a success and this is what Pertierra hopes to bring to Williamsburg.
“Working with people and cycling, I love it. You’d have to kill me to stop me from doing this,” Pertierra said.
Williamsburg from the seat of a bike
The program takes cyclists from the very beginning of their skills, and Pertierra works with them to train and practice safety protocols on the road. A group of cyclists starts out fresh, meeting at 7 a.m. Sundays at Studio A, and Pertierra takes them from riding a few miles to being able to complete 60-mile courses. Currently the program is free, but Pertierra hopes it will become popular enough to start a membership program.
“You have a group of cyclists and you have to help them feel enthusiastic about this,” he said. “It’s not easy to get up in the morning and ride 60 miles when two months ago you weren’t doing anything at all. But when they see the results, they’re hooked for life.”
Pertierra breaks his cyclists into teams, starting out with a group of about 40 people and taking the riders through the training program. In Puerto Rico, his teams got as big as 80 members.
Now Pertierra is back at the beginning and starting a new Team One again in Williamsburg.
But he isn’t discouraged by the challenge. When Pertierra talks about PowerCad, his words come out so fast that it’s obvious how his passion will be reflected in the new iteration of the program in Williamsburg.
“PowerCad is going to bring more joy to Studio A,” said Antwain Haskins, owner of Studio A Fitness. “We are going to integrate the program into our studio because it’s not just about going out on the road with a bicycle. We want to bring out the techniques to make sure when you’re on the road, you feel comfortable because it does a lot of benefits.”
Pertierra is all about advocating for the benefits of cycling, saying that it not only has perks for physical health, but it brings a community together. There are also positive psychological aspects that keep Pertierra on the bicycle seat every day, he said.
And that’s what he hopes to bring to his new home.
“We’re here and we’re going to reinvent ourselves,” he said. “It feels weird because we’re in a brand new place but Williamsburg people are amazing, they are so welcoming. I’m in love with everybody here in Williamsburg.”
