In 1994 I bought my first mountain bike: a "Mantis Profloater". This was followed in the same year by my very first Alps crossing on a mountain bike, one of quite a few to come. Thereafter I made many bike tours in Europe, several crossings of the Alps on different routes were on my list, a crossing of the Pyrenees from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, mountain bike and road bike tours in Crete, Sardinia, Sicily, Corsica, the Canary Islands, Mallorca and Cyprus.
In the year 2004 I was "persuaded" by my future female team partner Kerstin Löffler to do my very first mountain bike marathon. Although I was quite skeptical at first it turned out to be such a lot of fun that subsequently I have done many more mountain bike marathons and particularly MTB stage races. So in the years to come I was three times in South Africa to do one of the most cruel team races: the eight day "Cape Epic" Challenge (www.cape-epic.com). I did the "1. Dominican Republic Mountainbike Transalp Race" and I was two times in Canada for the six day team race across the Rocky Mountains, the "TransRockies Challenge" (www.transrockies.com/trc/) and the seven day "BC Bike-Race", a team race in British Columbia from Vancouver Island to Whistler (www.bcbikerace.com).