Local Bloomfield Hills cycler making headlines on national scale

BLOOMFIELD HILLS — When growing up and wishing upon a star to be a professional athlete, cycling athletes don’t usually crack the top-10 when it comes to big names.

The four major sports of basketball, football, baseball and hockey inevitably take up the top spots, but what about the cycling legends that have graced the sport?

“Unfortunately, a lot of kids don’t get into the sport on their own,” Polo Fernandez, the founder of Cleveland Cycling Academy, said. “A lot of kids don’t grow up saying, ‘I want to be the next Lance Armstrong.’”

Lance Armstrong might not be the athlete children dream about becoming, but a father figure is someone most kids aspire to be like and follow.

For Bloomfield Hills native Kash Adamski, 15, cycling was all he ever knew after following in his father’s tracks, literally.

“As far as I can remember, when I was 3 or 4, my dad would always go on bike rides with his friends, and I would always want to go,” Adamski said. “Eventually, one day I did go, and we went to the BMX track. From there, it kind of just built on, and I started racing, adapting and going to nationals, and I just got better.”

Fast forward over a decade later, Adamski is now a two-time USA Velodrome Track Cycling National Champion and became the 2022 Michigan Scholastic Cycling Association Michigan State Mountain Bike Champion, placing first in all six races, as part of Rochester United Mountain Bike Team.

Adamski’s skill-set goes far beyond the average cycler, for when he’s not doing track racing for the Lexus Velodrome team in Detroit in the winter, he’s competing for the Rochester United Mountain Bike Team in the fall, and when summer rolls around, it’s all about the road/dirt racing for the Cleveland Cycling Academy.

Adamski has been training with Lexus Velodrome for two years now, going two to four times a week to train at the facility.

In early July, Adamski collected five medals, four bronze and one gold in the 4K Team Pursuit, at the 2023 Track National Championships in Carson City, California.

Adamski’s dominant performances on the velodrome circuit caught the eye of Fernandez, who coaches some of Adamski’s Lexus Velodrome teammates on the Cleveland Cycling Academy.

Fernandez made the trip to the velodrome in Detroit to see him compete, and he was immediately impressed.

“The sky’s the limit,” Fernandez said. “What we’ve seen so far and what made us interested to bring him on board was his ability to just push himself to the highest level at his young age.”

Adamski has posted multiple first place performances as a part of the Cleveland Cycling Academy since joining this year.

It’s a bit of a strategic adjustment for Adamski, but the team chemistry is simple to create when he’s already been racing with some of his teammates on the track circuit.

“On the road, there’s a lot more strategy going into it, like, team strategy,” Adamski said. “On the track, even if you have a teammate in the race, it’s kind of every man for himself. You can’t really work together unless you specifically plan out that you have to do this, this, this and this. There could be a crash and anyone could go down. It’s a lot more likely for your plan to fail.”

In the Bicycle Motocross world, Adamski first started riding at age 5, when he was immediately making an impact, winning 10 races his first season in the novice class and 20 races in the intermediate class.

Adamski collected first in several DK Gold Cup races around the Midwest and was runner-up in the Great Lakes National in 2019, and now has found success as part of the Rochester United team.

“I think some of his biggest progression isn’t so much physically, although he’s progressed physically, but his biggest progression I’ve seen on the track and on the road is his knowledge, strategy and tactics in the race,” Mike Hartrick, head coach at Rochester United, said. “He goes into the races with a plan, and he usually executes that plan pretty well.”

Now that the mountain bike season is in full swing, Adamski has a few goals on his mind heading into the mountain bike season and track season in the winter.

Adamski, who is heading into his first year at Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice High School, plans to race collegiately when it’s all said and done, but he said he has some business to take care of before any of that.

“I want to win another national championship this fall at Madison Nationals for sure,” Adamski said. “That’s the rest of this year’s goal along with doing well with the mountain biking state championships. Next year and the year after, I want to win the omnium in L.A. so I can wear the jersey all the time, and I want to win individual pursuit and go to worlds and race individual pursuit when I’m old enough. That’s my ultimate goal.”