I was born in Bebington on the Wirral (in the same hospital as Chris Boardman I've been told), then moved to Chester aged 2. I was sporty from quite an early age (in fact my parents still maintain that I learned to run before I ever learned to walk), playing netball for the junior school team, and representing Chester schools at cross country running. At secondary school I continued with both the netball and the running, and played a bit of hockey aswell. At that stage the bike was only really a method of transport to school and friends houses.

Having sucessfully passed my A-levels in maths, physics and chemistry, I headed off to Birmingham University to study for a degree in Chemical Engineering. At university the sports had to fit in with the fairly heavy engineering lecture timetable, and of course the equally heavy pub visiting timetable as well as a few part time jobs to top up the grant. Having said that, I managed to fit in playing netball and hockey in the inter-department competition, playing rugby for Selly Oak ladies, and training as a lifeguard. And it was at university that I met Chris (my ex boyfriend) and started cycling.

After graduating I started a job with Cadbury Ltd doing various jobs from Shift management to Marketing, and finally ending up in their Bristol factory as a Project Engineer.

In 1997 I joined the Birkenhead Northend Cycling Club (as Chris was living in Runcorn so I was spending most of my weekends up North) and started doing weekend club runs with them. Then was pursuaded to ride a time trial, and ended up not only enjoying it, but going faster than I expected, and from that moment I was hooked. I pretty quickly switched to road racing, and I have to admit, started at the bottom - I was being dropped in most races, and lapped quite a lot, but I was enjoying it, and could see the improvements. By 2000 I had made a fair bit of that necessary improvement, and was consisently getting placings in the Jo Bruton National Series races, and I was offered a place on the World Class Performance plan for 2001.

At the start of 2001 I quit my job with Cadbury's and became a full time cyclist, and I've never looked back since. My career highlights to date include a bronze medal in the Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games road race, competing in the 2004 Olympic road race in Athens, 2 stage wins in international races and several medals in national championships.

I spent my first 3 years as a full time cyclist riding for the GB National team, then in 2004 I made the move to a professional team and rode for the dutch Farm Frites-Hartol team in support of Mirjam Melchers and cycling legend Leontine Zijlard van Moorsel. In 2005 I rode for the danish Team SATS, and in 2006 I take a step up as I move to american Team Victory Brewing as their team leader.

First International win : Stage 6, Gracia Orlova, Czech Republic, May 2002

Birkenhead North End CC