The way you bike
is the way you live.
Skills learned on the mountain bike will reach further than the trail.
Mountain Biking is life! The skills we teach on the bike can also teach you how to move through your life. The practice of mindfulness—taking notice of when you are in a reactive survival state and creating intentional change—will create parallel improvements to your own life’s balance, alignment, integrity, sustainability, and resilience.
- SimplyMTB Founder
I was the worst mountain biker around.
As a competitive road cyclist, I thought mountain biking would be easy. I had the fitness for cycling, after all, so what more did I need? Yet the second I got on the mountain, I realized that this was a very different sport. This sport was bringing me face-to-face with my fear.
Tears on the trail were the norm for me that first year of mountain biking. Fear and frustration ran rampant through my veins as I walked every single switchback and over every single rock I encountered. I thought often about giving up, about selling my bike and moving back into my life as a roadie. But there was something about mountain biking that kept pulling me back.
“I am not exaggerating when I say that I was the absolute worst mountain biker around.”
The mountains had something to offer that I just didn’t experience on my road bike. It was the smell of fresh air, the breeze blowing through the trees. It was like there was this secret world in the trees that only a select few who made the jump knew about. The cost of entry was steep though… I needed to learn how to mountain bike. I needed skills.
Once I moved my attention from my fear to my skills, everything changed. I decided to practice everything that scared me while my boyfriend patiently coached me through. Time and time again, I would hike my bike back up the trail to try to make it down the turn without putting a foot down or ride the rock without panic braking in the middle. Little by little I gained confidence and control on my bike.
Little by little I gained confidence and control on my bike.
That first season on the trails turned mountain biking into a passion for me and I wanted to share it with everyone I met. I learned that love of this sport came through learning key fundamentals and mastering my mind. Five years into improving my own riding and teaching as well, I decided to turn my passion of mountain biking into something more…
SimplyMTB.
SimplyMTB came from a place of passion for teaching and connection to my own mind, body, and nature. Once I found balance and awareness on the bike, my capacity to appreciate the rhythm of the world increased too. Mountain biking changed my life, and now I wanted to share these life lessons with everyone I met. Starting this business was just the beginning for me. I wanted to continue to learn new teaching techniques and add growth to my own mountain bike and life skills.
I have since become a level two certified instructor with PMBIA (Professional Mountain Bike Instructors Association). I have my 200-hour yoga certification, teach pilates and snowboarding, and study psychology. I draw on the principles of these schools of thought to help my students find their own connections to mind and body.
