Paul Gruber
Having now completed 3 expedition adventure races (XPD) and recruiting a team friends who also live in or near Warrandyte Vic, his training is normally a great bunch of fun and rarely lonely.
Paul is a former Ironman Triathlete, but has was captivated when watching the extreme nature of the Ecochallenge events. With some rogaining experience he became involved in a few shorter adventure races before sticking his hand up for XPD Whitsundays several years ago.
He loves the feeling of standing on top of a mountain that has taken the team all day to get to as well as sporting the scars of hours bashing through spine laden vegetation. Through adventure racing he has experienced parts of the Australian countryside that few have been able to access.
He enjoys filming and editing short video's and you'll likely see him on course with GoPro in hand capturing the unfolding adventure.
Karina Vitiritti
Karina can get talked into just about anything as long as you promise she'll have an adventure. Let's do Geoquest - "sure"..."XPD", "why not, I'm in!". She doesn't spend many waking hours off the mountain bike and when she's off it, she's probably running, kayaking or rock climbing. She is a cartographer by trade (so reasonably handy with maps).
Karina's background is running and triathlons. Her main passion now is mountain biking and loves nothing more than getting out on her bike and riding singletrack and the steep dirt hills of Warrandyte and surrounds. She stumbled across Adventure Racing serveral years ago after entering a short event at Lysterfield with a MTB friend and loved every minute of it. Now you could say she is addicted to the challenge and adventure that comes with this crazy sport.
Karina is always keen to introduce new people to adventure racing and has a keen eye for potential gun teammates.
Karina's background is running and triathlons. Her main passion now is mountain biking and loves nothing more than getting out on her bike and riding singletrack and the steep dirt hills of Warrandyte and surrounds. She stumbled across Adventure Racing serveral years ago after entering a short event at Lysterfield with a MTB friend and loved every minute of it. Now you could say she is addicted to the challenge and adventure that comes with this crazy sport.
Karina is always keen to introduce new people to adventure racing and has a keen eye for potential gun teammates.
Angus Rodwell
Angus
is a builder with an eye for adventure. His studied outdoor education
before getting on the tools. He's been riding bikes since before he can
remember and is a super competitive bloke.
He has spend a significant time doing "high altitude training camps" at Hotham Ski Resort. We're hoping that will pay dividends, though racing he may not get to have as many caffe latte stops as he does on the slopes!
Tim Boote
Tim has been playing all sorts of sports since he can remember, but only got into triathlons a few years ago. He lives in East Gippsland with his partner who is a avid runner and his two dogs who he trains with regularly. Living in East Gippsland the progression into off road multi-sports and adventure racing was always going to happen. He has been fortunate enough to compete in some multi-day races in China and loves getting to as many local races in VIC and NSW as possible. The area Tim lives in is a perfect training ground for this type of racing and has a great little multi-sport club that has helped him improve and has many top quality training partners. He really likes the team aspect of Adventure racing and favourite leg would be the Mountain Bike, but he loves any challenge or adventure no matter how big or small.
Bruce is new to adventure racing have recently completing his first adventure race, however what he lacks in experience he makes up for in attitude and determination. His background is triathlon having completed Ironman Australia and South Korea in 2000/2001. He also has climbing experience in the NZ Alps, Himalayas and Teton mountain ranges and has strong mountain biking skills. He runs his own digital scanning business and has a young family with two kids.
The team
We were known as Team PHAROS at XPD 2013 in South Australia
See our Blog here.
In 2013 at Geoquest we raced as TopGear Cycles
See our Blog here.
