Hi there!
This is me on my bike, my happy place. My name is Tanja, and I have so many ideas and energy. I think it is a superpower. It has led me to some fantastic results and some brilliant failures. It is never boring, I can tell you that.
Follow me here on my quest to add a bit more (bike) adventure to my life. I know it makes me a healthier and happier person to be around, but my biggest drive is that I want my girls growing up with more adventure in their life too. I don’t want them to be scared or bored (or zoned out in front of the tv).
In 1995 I started mountainbiking after looking for a cool hobby that would make up for me sitting behind a computer all day long.
After a few years I bought a ‘light’ freerider in 2001 and I thought I’d have years of fun with it. Within 6 months I traded it in for a Santa Cruz Bullit. An awesome allround freeride/downhill bike. I finished the Megavalanche in 2003 and 2004 with it and even became the Dutch national champion Downhill in 2005.
2003 Co-Founded girlzz-offroad.com a platform for promoting women’s cycling on mountainbikes. This included organising tours, trainingcamps and skills-clinics. My personal highlights where the GO CUP events we held. A XC race, a Downhill race and a Dual Slalom. With one overall winner.
2006 Co-Founded Ghost Babes, a downhill team with Marieke Brinks, believe me we didn’t come up with the name ourselves.
2010 Co-Founded Freeride4girls.nl – blogging platform and freeride events. Highlight where 10 Dutch women participating in the Trek Bike Attack in Lenzerheide in 2012
2012 C0-Founded an international Downhill and enduro racing team (I left in 2014 for health reasons, this marked also my departure from racing).
2015 Co-Founded… no just kidding, my wife and I had twins. Shortly after I took a sabbatical from cycling.
2019 Co-Founded Gravelgirls.nl (podcast and website) started gravel-riding and bikepacking. Haven’t looked back since.