Photos Courtesy of Crystal Kovacs
What is a cyclist? For Shimano Gravel Ambassador Crystal Kovacs, “It’s anyone who throws a leg over the bike.”
At the age of 40, Crystal rediscovered cycling, which has come to transform her. During those first rides back, she would pedal ten miles and worry about making up the last hill home. Over the next five years her love of bikes grew and reshaped her life and redefined what she thought possible.
Now on her 100-mile rides, a hill is just another bump in the road, an embraceable part of the experience. She’s found great joy in riding the dirt roads and trails that wind through the bluff top forests along the Mississippi river near her home in Wisconsin. The bicycle has taken her family across the Great Plains and Western US on adventures they never imagined they’d experience. She’s met a the inclusive community surrounding gravel events, which is a riding community that she can’t wait to reconnect with and help welcome more people in to. As she puts it, “My adventure redefined me.”
Crystal joined Shimano LIVE to tell her story, and inspire us all, bicycle newcomers and lifers alike. After all, it’s never too late to let cycling change our lives for the better.
