Born in Russia, Colorado Raised

Born in Russia, Colorado raised. Throughout my, so far, short life, I have been a gymnast, a tennis player, a swimmer, a climber, a soccer player, a downhill skier, and a skate skier. Out of each sport I tried on, nothing fit quite as well as mountain biking and cyclocross racing. It's easy to say that I have fallen head over heels in love with riding my bike in circles. Literally. My very first ride with a local mountain bike camp, SMBA, I went down on a gravel road and had to get stitches at the end of the day. What made me want to keep going? Who knows, I was 11. It must have been some sort of irresistible pull for riding over rocks and eventually mountains.

I grew up chasing boys and pretending like I wasn't trying to keep up. My first few years of racing were me racing me, myself, and I. It never even occurred to me that it was possible that there were other girls that wanted to end the day covered in dust or mud or grease marks. Let me be brutally honest, when I showed up to my first race with another girl, I was a little bummed that I didn't have the sport to myself anymore. Very soon after, I quickly began to love having more and more girls show up to races. In recent years, my races have consisted of categories ranging from 5-100 ladies. Most of these girls have become my closest friends. 
I love riding my bike because the cycling community has introduced some of the most unique and interesting people. I have met aerospace engineers, teachers, artists, food scientists (not nutritionists), nutritionists, high school dropouts, pilots, lawyers, doctors, business owners, and so many more. We all have something in common and that is our passion for putting ourselves in the red, our tenacity for sweating when it's 100 degrees, our perseverance for nursing frost bite when it’s below 0, our eagerness to splash around in puddles, and our excitement for finishing rides with a dust unibrow. There is nothing better than riding a bike.