Kirsten Wolcott
The Impact of ONE.
Resilient in her faith and equipped to serve, Kirsten's story teaches all of us never to underestimate the difference that one person's life can make.
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Joy Duerksen
Champion Mountain Bike Racer, PE Teacher, Friend
How many teachers do you know who have calf tattoos exactly the size and shape of a mountain bike disk brake? Meet Joy Duerksen, United States National Champion Mountain Bike Racer (women's expert class, 2007, California Champion in 2006 and 2007).
Joy is PE teacher at Redlands Academy, an Adventist school in California, where she teaches girls in grades 6-10 along with additional classes in health and geography.
"She's the best teacher I've had," says one of her students. "She's hard on us, but we all know she really likes us!"
"I can't imagine riding as many miles as she does each week," says one of her fellow teachers, "but one of the best places to find Joy is somewhere up in the mountains near Big Bear-riding lickety-split through the trees."
Joy rides 150-200 miles per week, plus races. Though she has raced with Specialized for the past several years, in 2009 she's racing as a PRO and is on a new team racing for Trek Bicycles-and riding a fancy new Gary Fisher bike. Though most of her racing is on mountain bikes, she's recently added a number of road races to her schedule-and has just won the Boulevard SW 3/4 in Southern California.
"Amazing!" Joy wrote after the Boulevard race. "Hardest day on the bike I can remember. My race was in 36-degree weather with steady heavy rain with standing water. It came down to an uphill 5-mile finish with one girl and me going back and forth. But with 200 m to go I sprinted to clinch the win."
The "tattoo?" She blew a tire halfway down a mountain, and while changing the tube slipped her leg far too close to the disk brake. It was "red-hot" and left a permanent reminder on her leg.
