The Anka Martin Story
Filling in an arrival card at the end of an international flight is difficult for Anka Martin. It’s the pesky ‘occupation’ question that trips her up. The mountain biking legend must be one of the busiest people in the sport. How do you answer that question when you’re involved with such a wide range of projects? What do you write when you’re unsure of the answer yourself? Anka’s solution, as with many aspects of her life, is to have fun with it: “I always have a giggle and write something totally absurd.”
Among other things, Anka is an event co-owner and organiser, ambassador, writer, presenter, and yoga teacher. Look at what goes into just one of her ventures, the women’s-focused guided multi-day bike tour company run under the name Soul Trails, run in collaboration with the best local guiding outfits. This year, Anka is taking tours to France, Italy, Scotland, USA, and South Africa.
“I plan and organise everything: build my own website, sell trips, correspondence, logistics… everything. So it takes a lot of time and figuring things out to pull these together,” Anka says. Logistics alone sounds like a full-time job. For Anka, who started the tours four years ago, it was something to fill gaps in her international race schedule, knowing it was what she wanted to focus on when she stopped strapping on a number plate. None of this has dropped into her lap. It comes from years of incredibly hard work, careful
