Mountain Biking Marin
The Ultimate Bike Experience

About Us

Mountain Biking Marin offers guided bike tours to ride the best mountain bike trails around the San Francisco Bay Area. As well, we offer customized mountain bike skill clinics for those willing to learn and practice technical drills. Meet the Mountain Biking Marin team:

• Celia Graterol, Founder and Guide/Instructor
• Michael Brill, Movie Maker and Guide/Instructor
• Chad Etheridge, Guide/Instructor
• Leigh Etheridge, Guide
• Tom Fallon, Lead Guide/Instructor
• Maureen Gaffney (Mo), Guide/Instructor
• Jackie Pereira, Guide/Instructor
• Brian Popplewell, Guide/Instructor
• Karen Rehder, Guide/Instructor
• Shanti Tilling, Guide/Instructor
• Christina Toms, Guide
• Todd Wright, Guide/Instructor

And also meet Mountain Biking Marin Guest Instructors/Guides

Celia Graterol (Founder and Guide/Instructor)

Celia Graterol, founder of Mountain Biking Marin and 06 Downhill US National Champion, has been organizing mountain bike rides and clinics around the San Francisco Bay and Tahoe areas since 2002. With her extensive knowledge of the trails and ride leadership experience, Celia offers opportunities for fun, safe and gorgeous rides at all levels. For the last 8 years, Celia has focused on offering first class individual and group clinics to teach others how to master Cross Country and Downhill riding. Clients' testimonials about our bike tours and bike skill clinics.

Celia's training as a Cross Country, Super D and Downhill racer in the expert category has equipped her with the skills to lead all level tours and teach all level clinics (Celia Graterol's bio). She is well known among her fellow riders for her capacity to organize fun mountain bike rides.

Michael Brill (Movie Maker and Guide/Instructor)

Michael Brill is an All Mountain/DownHill rider with over 5 years of experience in mountain biking. He has recently started racing; and, in 2009 he placed in the top 3 in 5 races including a win at the Race For Tara Mega DH@ Northstar in Tahoe!

Michael owns Reel Motion Sports which provides opportunities for Mountain Biking Marin riders to be guided and captured on film to create their own personal biking experience.

Every year Michael makes the pilgrimage to Whistler during the summer to test the drops, jumps and ladders. Originally from The South, Michael enjoys new places and has ridden DH/AM in places like Mexico, Hawaii, Kentucky, Indiana, Utah, and Tennessee. While biking is his passion, his first love was and always will be surfing. Michael resides in San Francisco, California where he is a Business Relationship Manager for a global services firm.

Chad Etheridge (Guide/Instructor)

Chad Etheridge has been mountain biking for 18 years. His finesse, style, and technical skills when riding downhill trails are only surpassed by his ability to show and teach others how to do it. He has been instructing and guiding adventure sports since 1999 (white water rafting, mountain biking, along with white water and ocean kayaking). The past couple of years his riding partners have convinced him to try racing Downhill, he won the few races he entered. However, Chad prefers to spend his time on the mountain with good friends and trying to style his way down the most technical trails.

Chad resides in Alabama. He is completing his Doctoral project which focuses multiple intelligences and learning styles.

Leigh Etheridge (Guide)

Leigh Etheridge has been mountain biking for as long as she can remember, including racing in college. Leigh loves to ride technical descents and to help other women learn how to navigate their way down the most daunting of trails. Last year in 20009, during her first downhill race at the CCCX race series she came in as the second fastest woman of the day! She has been a mountain bike and ocean kayak guide in Northern California since 2004.

Leigh resides in Alabama.

Tom Fallon (Lead Guide/Instructor)

Tom Fallon's did his first bike ride to the top of Mt. Tam when he was only 8 years old. Tom has over 40 years of singletrack riding experience and more than 30 years of racing experience with motocross, mountain bikes, shift karts, and race cars. He has been involved in racing as driver, rider, chief mechanic/engineer and driver/rider coach. Tom entered the 1992 Indianapolis 500 as car owner and chief mechanic and he was the winner of his class at the 2003 Downieville Classic Downhill race riding his own prototype Shaman TF1 bike.

Toms experience at high levels of racing have given him an in-depth understanding of bike dynamics and an ability to teach riding techniques in a unique and effective way, combining proper bike set-up, with Zen and the art of mountain biking. Tom's approach helps riders understand what makes a bike work, and how to build up to higher speeds when riding by maximizing efficiency through selection of proper smooth lines, braking techniques, and keeping the "fun-meter" redlined.

Tom resides in San Anselmo, Marin County, California. Tom is the funder of Shaman Engineering where he designs and develops proprietary bicycle rear suspension system and offers custom mechanical services.

Maureen (Mo) Gaffney (Guide/Instructor)

Maureen (Mo) Gaffney is a Downieville Classic DH and Lemurian XC winner, professional trail planner (San Francisco Bay Trail Project), road rider, hiker, equestrian, and dedicated fan of Marin County. Mo is the president of the board of directors of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition, a bike advocate, a ride leader and an incredible teacher. She has been riding mountain bikes for 20 years.

She resides in Marin county.

A three time National Champion in Karate (Martial Arts) in Brazil and Professional Supercross racer for several years, Jackie transitioned successfully into competitive bicycling in the early 1990s. She started racing in both cross-country and downhill events when she moved to Boulder, CO for school. She won the finals in downhill events in the expert level in 1993-1994-1995. She also won the Kamikaze DH race in Mammoth in 1994-1995-1997. She raced downhill for a few more years, and has raced in cross-country events and road races as well.

Jackie loves to ride and loves to help others develop their riding skills. She has been helping NorCal High school MTB league clinics for the past 5 years, and helping coach the Redwood High mountain bike team for the past 4 years as well. She is now a LunaChix ambassador (Team LUNA Chix are ladies dedicated to getting more women into sports and outside to play! At the same time, they raise awareness and money for the Breast Cancer).

Jackie resides in Marin County and work in San Francisco as a Software Engineer.

Brian Popplewell (Guide/Instructor)

Brian Popplewell has been riding mountain bikes for 15 years. Brian also has been racing the last few years in XC, Super-D, and DH. He has been in the bicycle industry for several years helping people getting on bikes and improving their experience riding. Brian's extensive experience with dirt jumping and DH trail riding combined with his positive encouragement and clear explanations of body and bike movements makes him a very effective instructor for those intrepid riders wanting to learn or improve their skills at how to launch, jump obstacles or fly with your bike!

Brian resides in Marin County, California.

Karen Rehder (Guide/Instructor)

Karen Rehder is a cross country racer in the masters category with many victories including: 1st at Downieville Classic XC 2006 and 2008 in the Masters Women category; 1st place at the Big Blue San Francisco AR 2007; 1st place at Sea Otter AR 2007; 1st place at the Big Blue Winter 2007; 1st place at Sea Otter Short Track 2006; 1st place at the Escape from Alcatraz Mother Son Team 2005; and placed top 20 in the 2004 La Ruta de los Conquistadores, a 3-day stage XC race across Costa Rica.

Karen is a proud mother of beautiful Bradley and Nicole, two athlete scholars who make the world a better place. In her spare time, Karen works as a Cardiology Nurse Practitioner.

Karen resides in Marin County and is a LUNA MTB Ambassador and a coach for the Terra Linda High School NorCal MTB Team.

Shanti Tilling (Guide/Instructor)

Shanti began riding and racing cross-country in 1998. Her mountain biking "habit" has taken her around the world -- riding across Portugal, through the French Alps, Italy, Guatemala, Chile and Canada. She has recently taken up stage-racing, enduring the Trans-Rockies, Trans-Portugal, and Toronto's Crank the Shield.

Because Shanti did not have anyone show her technical riding skills when she was a beginner, she fully appreciates the value of lessons and skills clinics. She enjoys teaching new riders and helping them to feel strong and confident going up and down the mountain.

Shanti's passion is educating and inspiring people to adopt healthy lifestyles. She resides in Marin County and is a personal trainer who runs bootcamps and boxing classes throughout Marin. When not riding or playing around with clients, Shanti can be found in a yoga class, running on the trails, or baking yummy treats.

Christina Toms (Guide)

Christina Toms has ridden bikes all her life and got serious about mountain biking in the last few years. She honed her "urban assault" skills while an undergraduate at the University of Maryland and a post-graduate at
UC-Berkeley. She recently started racing XC and came in second in her age class in the 2009 Shasta-Lemurian Classic. She loves riding technical trails at locations such as Pacifica, Mammoth, and Northstar and she considers mountain biking to be the perfect way to introduce people to the joy of the outdoors.

When she's not riding bikes, Christina is an ecological engineer who has dedicated her career to preserving and restoring wetland ecosystems throughout northern California. She lives in Marin County where she enjoys the blessed combination of great trails, great friends, and great food!

Todd Wright (Guide/Instructor)

Todd has been an avid rider for the last 4 years. Last season (2009) after receiving several private clinics from Celia Graterol and Brian Popplewell, Todd was able to master some of the most challenging riding techniques (e.g., downhill riding, dirt jumping, cornering switchbacks at high speeds and more). He became a regular rider of the most difficult Tahoe cross country and downhill trails including Northstar. As well, Todd discovered a passion for teaching others how to ride and has become one of the company instructors and tour guides since then. He now shows me how to do challenging moves!

Currently Todd resides in San Francisco, California. When he is not biking, Todd enjoys local surfing in Pacifica and Santa Cruz, and drinking beer in the best local pubs.