Dana Hunsinger Benbow

dana.benbow@indystar.com

The sun is shining brilliantly. It is one of those perfect, crisp fall days.

Moise Brutus, his face a mask of fierce determination, is pedaling his bicycle around the Major Taylor Velodrome in Indianapolis.

He is living a dream — a college athlete, a cyclist on a nationally renowned team at Marian University.

This day, though, and Brutus' joy and triumph as he rides in the sun are in stark contrast to the darkness and desperation of an early morning four years ago.

Oct. 23, 2010. Brutus, then 20, was riding his motorcycle on the Homestead Extension of Florida's Turnpike in Miami. He was a student at Miami-Dade College.

Then he was flying. Something had smashed into Brutus, crushing his motorcycle and throwing him into a drainage ditch alongside the road.

Whoever hit him didn't stick around to help.

Battered and bleeding but conscious, Brutus reached for his cell phone with his left arm. But his left arm, below the elbow, wasn't there. His legs were missing, too.

"I already knew. I saw," Brutus said. "It was just kind of like life was over for me."

He managed to reach his phone with his right arm — the one limb that remained — and dialed 911.

One of the officers who responded to the scene, Carlos Villalona of the Miramar Police Department, told the Sun Sentinel in 2011 that Brutus' injuries were akin to wartime damage. Villalona had been in the U.S. Army.

The blood, the horrific wounds, they weren't something you typically see on a civilian, he said. Certainly not on a person still alive.

So it really comes as no shock, no surprise that Brutus has made an elite college cycling team. That he had the determination. The heart. The drive to get back up and pedal.

"Bad stuff will happen. You've just got to continue and not give up," said Brutus, 24, who is getting his degree in management and finance. "Look at where I'm at now. Around that time is when life actually started."

It's hard to believe that life could start, could be better, after the loss of three limbs. But Brutus said it did. The tragedy changed everything. Living, just being alive, is something to be celebrated each day.

Brutus is the newcomer to Marian cycling, joining the team in August. After the accident, he rode a stationary bike for therapy and realized that cycling was something he could do – and be good at.

This year, he approached the college, asking to join the team. By then, he had already been training intensely in Florida, with the goal of representing the United States in the 2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Marian's cycling program saw Brutus' ability. His talent.

"We thought he would be a good fit," said Michael Kubancsek, communication and operations manager for the team.

Making the Marian team is no small feat. It's made up of superior cyclists from all over the world. Sixty-five men and women from 23 states and five countries are on the team.

The program has won 27 team national championships in track, road, BMX and cyclocross. It captured its latest national title Sept. 28. Marian is also the reigning Division I Omnium Champion Team and has been honored as the USA Cycling Collegiate Club of the Year three times, most recently in 2013.

Being on such a team is an honor for Brutus. He is the first amputee to be a member since Marian's program was founded in 1992.

"These are the best of the country," he said. "Of course, I'm not as fast as other members of my team. But I am just another member of the team. The only difference with me than the other guys, I get a lot more help."

His legs don't ripple with muscles like his teammates'. His special cycling legs are silver with feet that look like blades attached to the pedals.

He can't just hop on a bicycle and take off. Someone helps him on and then locks his prosthetic arm into the handles.

Once on, he gets a push from a teammate or coach. And with that, Brutus is just another Marian cyclist.

Cycling is a perfect sport, a perfect match for Brutus.

"The beauty of collegiate cycling is that it's designed to develop riders from whatever their starting point is," said head coach Dean Peterson. "So, we can work with everyone from elite level athletes, all the way to guys like Moise, meet them where they're at, and help them achieve their goals."

All while reveling in and experiencing that team bond.

"We don't think of him as any different," said Colton Barrett, a junior who competed in the 2014 USA Cycling Collegiate Track National Championships in September.

Brutus didn't make the Marian nationals team of eight men and eight women, but he was there, helping out.

"Moise, he is amazing," said Barrett. "He's the strongest heart on the team. He has the biggest drive of anyone on the team."

There are days, teammates say, when they are tired. They don't feel like practicing. And then they think of Brutus. And they realize, a little fatigue is nothing.

Benjamin Koenig, a freshman cyclist from Germany, remembers the day Brutus came onto the team.

"I immediately started thinking, 'Wow, the problems you thought you had were disadvantages?' " he said.

"It gives you another point of view," Koenig said. "You start thinking in another way from that point on."

What Brutus wants people to start thinking about is not his missing limbs, but about overcoming any adversity that might come their way. He wants his quest to make the Paralympics team and his spot on the Marian team to inspire others.

"He is young, driven, compassionate, empathetic and extremely focused on doing this for very unselfish reasons," said Adam Perler, a local cyclist who met Brutus in Miami. "It is his hope to inspire many with his story."

And that story, Brutus says, is a simple one.

"I think my story is just one of not giving up."

Call Star reporter Dana Hunsinger Benbow at (317) 444-6012. Follow her on Twitter:@danabenbow.