About the author
Rosie Kelly is a lifelong outdoor educator. In the seventies and eighties she led bicycle tours throughout the USA, Europe and Asia. She ran outdoor programs for the Girls Club of New York, Outward Bound and American Youth Hostels. Her love of winter sports began in the seventies as she became a cross country ski instructor and winter camping enthusiast.
She started teaching downhill skiing in the early eighties and was later drafted to become a snowboard instructor due to lack of older instructors. Rosie shares her love for the sport with everyone she comes in contact with. She has taught many students that have also gone on to be snowboard instructors as well.
She is currently working on a book about Snowboarding in China. Her website is rosiesadventures.com
Rosie Kelly grew up in a Brooklyn NYC tenement. She had little opportunity to explore the outdoors aside from occasional visits to city parks. While running through a park's sprinkler pool one day she spotted a rainbow for the first time and wondered what places lay at the other end. She planned to one day find out.
The family's introduction to car camping in NY's Catskill mountains prompted her lust for adventure and introduced her to a life outside the tenement building. It was her discovery of the bicycle that provided her with the feeling of freedom that she had always longed for. She was hooked on cycle touring after her very first cycle tour in Europe in the early seventies.
For over a decade she cycled thousands of miles both alone and as a bicycle tour leader for American Youth Hostels. Her passion for cycle touring took her across Europe several times as well as cycling tours In Japan, China, Taiwan and across the USA. Her discovery into travel on the cheap took her to Central America and India as well as to some trekking routes in Nepal.
After over a decade of bicycle and adventure travel her love for the outdoors brought her back to the favorite family state campground in NYS Catskill mountains later as the caretaker. Although the extended cycle tours where on hold for a while she later became a full time ski and snowboard instructor in an effort to provide her sons with a lift ticket and a passion of their own. During that part of her life she encountered her greatest adventure, raising children.
At age 60 she explored Taiwan alone by the seat of a bicycle and decided to try to tackle the Mandarin language. For her 61st birthday she did a solo snowboard trip in China. She was thrilled to be able to ask directions and order food in Chinese. Rosie found the China trip to be the highlight of her Snowboard career.
She looks forward to many more years on the board and the bike and is currently planning an around the world adventure in the near future.