California Mom Andrea Cherniak-Tyson Made A Splash In Her 2024 Debut, And Now She’s Thinking Bigger

At one moment, Andrea Cherniak-Tyson was racing across the Texas roads on her bike. At the next, the rising Para-cyclist was crashing into a ditch.

She flew into the dirt.

The bike went with her.

Any hopes of the Paralympic Games floated away in that one moment during the U.S. Paralympics Cycling Road Open last April in Bryan, Texas. Even making the U.S. team for the upcoming world cup stops was unlikely.

But there was no giving up. Not for this 57-year-old cyclist and single mom based in San Jose, California, who overcame a bone-crushing car accident more than 30 years ago and turned a passion for running into a passion for cycling.

“I was bloody, and my bike was a mess,” she said. “I rode it on the rim for 2K until I got to the pit, and we switched out the wheel. And I rode the rest of the way.”

That determination carried Cherniak-Tyson to the finish line and sent her on an impressive journey that eventually resulted in a pair of fourth-place finishes in the women’s C4 class at the UCI Para-Cycling Road World Championships this past September in Zurich, Switzerland.

“Going to the world championship and being chosen to be on that roster actually was pretty amazing,” said Cherniak-Tyson, who grew up in Goshen, Indiana, earned a master’s degree in costume design at the University of Cincinnati, and helped with costume designs on Broadway in the 1990s. She’s now an architectural sales representative for California-based Dunn-Edwards Paints.

In her younger days, Cherniak-Tyson was a talented runner with dreams of racing in the Olympics.

“I wanted to be FloJo, or I wanted to be Jackie Joyner-Kersee,” she said. “I wanted to be all those girls, those women.”

A horrific car accident in 1992, in which her bones were crushed and a foot was severed, changed that. Though doctors were able to reattach the foot, her competitive running days were over. Instead, Cherniak-Tyson found cycling, which has grown from a passion to a new competitive endeavor over the last year or so.

Following the Road Cycling Open in Bryan, Cherniak-Tyson self-funded to race in a pair of world cup events this past spring as an independent. By September, she was making her world championships debut in her new Team USA jersey.

“Honestly, I was a bit shellshocked,” Cherniak-Tyson said. “I couldn’t believe the trajectory of this year. And yet I knew this is where I belong.”

Racing in the highly competitive WC4 class, she finished fourth in the time trial and fourth again in the road race that was won by U.S. teammate Samantha Bosco, a five-time world champion who was coming off a Paralympic gold medal in Paris.

“I didn’t perform the way I wanted to,” Cherniak-Tyson said. “I don’t like excuses. There’s always reasons. I really wanted to get on that podium, but if I couldn’t I was going to do whatever I could to try to make sure that my input could be felt.

“I’m a fighter,” she added.

And that determination now carries over to the 2025 season, during which Cherniak-Tyson hopes to make the U.S. world cup team instead of having to go to Europe independently. A new Tarmac SL8 road bike arrived for Christmas that will be adapted for her should help.

“My goal this year is to podium,” Cherniak-Tyson said, “which is a huge undertaking at my age when the girls are half my age. In doing so, that would be a world record. I would be the oldest.”

Count 2020 Paralympian Monica Sereda among the believers.

“She’s ready to rock and roll, and she’s really excited about it,” said Sereda, also 57, who has become a close friend and competition roommate of Cherniak-Tyson since meeting her last year.

After her injuries, Cherniak-Tyson had done mountain biking on a recreational basis, then she tried road biking after meeting another bike racer while the two served on a jury during a murder trial in California.

“Somebody got me a road bike for like $400,” said Cherniak-Tyson, who has served as vice president of the Northern California Nevada Cycling Association. “I tried it. It was like, ‘OK, this is cool.’ I started racing.”

But it wasn’t until this past year, in February 2024, that Cherniak-Tyson turned to the U.S. Paralympics Cycling program. The first race was in the Track Cycling Open at the VELO Sports Center’s velodrome in Carson, California. She had borrowed a track bike and trained for two and a half weeks.

“I took gold in my first race, which was pretty awesome,” she said.

Cherniak-Tyson also had second- and third-place finishes, but she discovered an even bigger thing in Carson: She belonged.

“Just being able to be there and to see where I would fit,” she said. “Seeing all of the athletes and seeing all that they are experiencing as Para athletes, I knew. These are my people. They get it.”

From there, Cherniak-Tyson switched to road and went to Texas for the Road Cycling Open, a qualifier for the world cup team. She didn’t make the cut but went to a pair of European world cup events anyway, rooming with Sereda, as an independent racer.

Cherniak-Tyson placed sixth in the time trial in her world cup debut in Ostend, Belgium, then was eighth in the road race. In Maniago, Italy, she placed eighth in the time trial while Sereda won a bronze medal, and she placed seventh in a road race won by Bosco.

Bosco’s victories, and the U.S. team concept, motivated Cherniak-Tyson even more.

“I have Sam as … that person is always right here and in my category. And Shawn Morelli (a three-time Paralympian). I mean, Shawn’s just constantly nipping at her feet, right?” Cherniak-Tyson said. “That just inspires me to push, too. You know, I want to nip at their feet, too. Not just for me, but to push them. When you’ve got somebody nipping at you, you’re like, ‘I’d better push it even further.’”

By the time they all got to Zurich, following a gold-medal win by Bosco at the Paralympic Games in Paris, Cherniak-Tyson was one of the gang. One day, when they weren’t competing at the world championships, they went to the Lindt Home of Chocolate factory and museum near Zurich.

“When we went to Zurich, it was really nice to get to know Sam a little bit more,” Cherniak-Tyson said. “She and I got to hang out a little bit. That was cool.”

Since then, a big part of Cherniak-Tyson’s bike family is Sereda. While they live on opposite coasts (Cherniak-Tyson in California and Sereda in Florida), they talk and text often.

“We’re like sisters,” said Sereda, a WT2 rider. “We’re the same age.”

Paul D. Bowker has been writing about Olympic and Paralympic sports since 1996, when he was an assistant bureau chief in Atlanta. He is a freelance contributor to USParaCycling.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.