Ride Along with Alex Jacques

[L: Alex in 2003 / R: Alex in 2023]

Alex Jacques (whom you may remember from our Whitman days as Alex Setoodeh) is the first to admit that her least favorite part of high school was going to class, which is why it's perhaps surprising that she teaches for a living. And while her classes involve a fair amount of number-crunching for someone who says math was her most-dreaded subject, that's where the similarities to high school end. Mere blocks from the sunny shores of Sydney, Australia's Manly Beach, Alex does double-duty as an indoor cycling instructor and small business owner of a popular cycling studio. "I always thought I'd work in the sports industry as a public relations professional, but I actually wound up spending the first 14 years of my career in sports doing event production," she says. "I had some amazing opportunities working for Madison Square Garden, Red Bull, Team USA, and others. When COVID-19 hit, I was on site at the Melbourne F1 GP and the race was cancelled. I shut down the site and suddenly went from having no personal time to having a lot of free time. I had always thought about getting my fitness certifications and teaching cycle on the side for fun. I used the down time during COVID to do just that." But working as a for-hire cycling instructor for big gyms lacked the community aspect Alex had come to love about cycling and so when Australia went into a second pandemic lockdown, she decided to take the leap to develop her own brand, eventually opening her own studio: ANTHEMCYCLE.

And it's clear that Alex's hard work has paid off. ANTHEMCYCLE's Google Reviews are five-star perfect, with fans touting the fact that it isn't just another soulless workout studio, but a place that fosters a sense of community, and more importantly, fun.

[Editor's Note: You can check out their Instagram page here: https://www.instagram.com/anthemcycle/]

And if living on Sydney's famous North Shore sounds dreamy, well... it is. "The best part of living here is that the beach we live on is home to a marine reserve, so when I need to disconnect I just grab my snorkel and go look at the marine life," Alex says. And while there aren't many downsides to living in paradise, Alex says she misses the snow, something she'll finally get to see for the first time when she flies to Japan in January for a ski trip.

Question: Do you have a partner and/or kids? Answer: I married my husband, Curt, back in 2016 and we were lucky enough that his job relocated us to Sydney in 2019 with our cat, Bob. [We] just became citizens!

Question: What was your favorite part about high school?

Answer: Hanging out with my friends, being a part of the crew team, the annual music program trips.

Question: Did you go to college? If so, what did you study? Answer: Northeastern U - Communications.

Question: Do you have any long-held high school secrets that you're dying to get off of your chest?

Answer: I could come clean to my parents that the ceramic table on their deck didn't break because I hit it while watering the plants while they were out of town, but because someone sat on it when I was having a party!

[L: Alex, at one such party / R: Prom night, 2003]