Good luck trying to keep up with Kevin Gottlieb.

As a professional cyclist, the 23-year-old Alexandria native leads an exciting life that takes him all around the globe. Recently, it brought him to Suffolk.

His sister, Colleen Rawls, lives here, but the city also possesses something he needed to help him prepare for his next race.

“In Alexandria, you can’t train at the volume that I have to,” he said, but the back roads near his sister’s home are well-suited for his training regimen. “Country roads are a lot better to ride on, so I knew the roads would allow me to ride four or five hours a day without stopping.”

And, of course, being in Suffolk gave him an opportunity to visit with his sister.

“I haven’t actually spent much time down here, so it’s kind of like (an) overdue visit,” he said. “It just worked out well.”

Gottlieb declared his training mission a success.

On June 22, he rode for three hours. The next day he rode for four and a half and the next day he rode for five.

His planned four-day visit soon turned to six. “That’s just how my life is. I never know,” he said.

He is now in China, competing in the race for which he was training, the Tour of Qinghai Lake. It started July 5 and will conclude on July 18, covering a distance of 2,940 kilometers, or nearly 1,827 miles. There are 22 teams and 154 riders competing.

Gottlieb is a member of the Airgas-Safeway cycling team.

Getting into cycling was a bit of a whim for Gottlieb, who loved the fact that it took place outdoors.

“My parents were always active, so when I was young, I would run 5Ks with my dad, and then I did a local triathlon, and then after that I bought my own bike, and after that I just rode my bike all the time,” he said.

Once, when Gottlieb and his father were riding in Northern Virginia, they saw a group of riders go by and tagged along. Soon the cyclists were explaining how he could get into racing.

He was still a junior in high school at this point, though, and a complete focus on racing would have to wait.

“High school and college — I prioritized school, and then if you wanted to be good enough to get on a big team out of high school, you had to pretty much not study or do schoolwork or anything,” he said. “But I was always a little bit behind because I was doing school, and then I graduated from (the University of Virginia) in 2013 and since that summer I’ve been racing full time, pretty much. This is my second year doing it full time with this team. And all I do is train and race, pretty much.”

Though he’s technically a professional cyclist, Gottlieb said, “I just don’t consider myself professional until I can pay my bills and everything with it.”

For now, he added, “I usually just live super-cheap and get help from my parents.” On the road during racing season, the team covers the cost of most everything.

California serves as a warm refuge for training during the winter months, but from April through September, racing season is on, and he is on the road almost nonstop.

He starts the season in southern California in the Redlands Bicycle Classic, but then he moves on to races in Arkansas, New Mexico, Tennessee, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and even abroad in places like South Africa.

Once, after finishing the Tour of the Gila, a race in Silver City, N.M., “we went from New Mexico to Azerbaijan for a race.”

While Gottlieb would like a permanent place to call home when he is not racing, he hopes to make cycling last as long as possible, continually improving as he goes.

“You always want more, so you always want to be better,” he said.