A Rolling Community: The Komoot Women’s Rally

Originally from Alaska, I’m an ultra-distance bikepacker. I started riding when I was 20 to commute to work at a brewery. That quickly turned into travelling by bike and eventually long-distance racing. Then I worked for half the year in restaurants to save money to bike for the other half. Now, I get to ride full time. I love every minute I get to spend on my bike. I’m motivated to create opportunities to get more women and girls on bikes and I organise a girls’ riding program, women’s adventure scholarships and most recently, I’ve been collaborating with Gaby Thompson and komoot to host women’s bikepacking rallies.

It’s incredible to see women gain confidence and support each other along the way

The rallies are an opportunity for women from around the world to take on a challenging route together. Generally, these routes are about 700km with a mix of gravel and tarmac and plenty of climbing. Everyone starts together, but along the way, we ride at our own pace and take care of our needs – deciding when and where to eat and sleep and how far we want to go each day. Women tend to naturally form small groups so we spread out and smaller groups meet up for camping, meals and helping each other when difficulties arise. It’s hard, but it’s also a lot of fun. 

The rallies are some of my favourite weeks of the whole year. It’s incredible to see women gain confidence and support each other along the way.

I moved from the UK to Switzerland about 17 years ago, where I’m an engineer with a side-gig in sport, cooking, and writing. I started road cycling in my 20s to cross-train for a running injury, then ended up racing professionally for a few years. I was lucky enough to go to a few Olympic and Commonwealth Games in cycling, and a few World Championships in both cycling and multi-sport. Three years ago I got into off-road cycling thanks to the encouragement of my friend Katherine Moore, who also persuaded me to try a ‘gravel’ event. Now, all-terrain bike adventures are my favourite way to travel and explore by bike, and bikepacking helps me train for ultra-running on the trails.

The komoot Women’s Torino-Nice Rally is a great way to try bikepacking and longer, more challenging routes for the first time. I wanted to be part of it to help encourage other women to try new things in the sport, because I remember how much the support of friends helped me when I was starting out. Even though everyone is self-sufficient on a rally like this, it’s reassuring to know that other people are around. And it’s so, so much fun to meet new people, ride together, camp together, seek snacks together, share the challenge. The struggles and the fun times. I think everyone learned something and by the end of the rally, there was a real feeling of empowerment and enthusiasm to take on more. So we all came away a bit stronger. Plus, of course, the Torino-Nice route is so beautiful! It’s glorious and tough – for everyone – but the great thing, which I didn’t realise beforehand, is how many options there are to shortcut and resupply, which makes it a lot easier mentally and physically.