Age: 33
Home: used to be Durban, South Africa until 2000 when I moved here to work. Now I live in Placentia (10 minutes from the Chino Hills State Park).
Years biking: since the beginning of 2002
Current bike: Santa Cruz Superlight (thanks to my biking friends who thought my little Trek hardtail was not cutting it!).
Other interests: surfing, snowboarding, golf, scuba diving, orienteering, and cooking.

I only got into mountain biking because I had seen adventure racing (6 hr, 12 hr or 24 hr bike, run, kayak, climbing etc) on TV and wanted to try it out. So I went out and got myself a bike and started riding fire roads (I had no idea what singletrack was yet!). As I didn't know anyone else who rode, I spent the first 10 months riding on my own in the Chino Hills. During this time I had discovered the Trail Angel website and kept an eye on what they were doing.

The biggest mistake I made was not joining one of their rides sooner. When I eventually did do a Saturday morning ride, I met Jacke and bunch of other regulars and newbies. I was so impressed by everyone's enthusiasm and passion. By this stage I had already done an adventure race and was at an intermediate level. I quickly found a group of Trail Angels at my same riding level. In the 6 months I've been riding with them, my riding and confidence has improved greatly. I've done one NORBA race and hope to do a few more.

However, my focus is still on adventure racing and biking is just one aspect of that. I've found that there are other Trail Angels interested in adventure racing. My goal is to forge a competitive all-women team for most of the adventure races within easy reach of southern California.