When somebody walks into your life, seemingly unassuming and shows you what courage actually looks like, that’s a person who’s story needs to be shared.

By courage I mean someone who lets themselves be 100% themselves, says “yes” to life and almost by default give permission to those around them to do the same. Zaya is this person and more. Riding is simply a means to a life of opportunity, possibility and ultimately adventure. When so many of us use our machines and gear to express ourselves, she does it through her attitude and character… which transcends the bikes she rides. She is no more cafe racer than she is dirt bike rider and yet when on all the motorcycles I’ve seen her ride, she is a natural. Comfortable in her own skin, all smiles and can see the possibility in everyone she meets and anything life throws at her.

Originally from Mongolia, Zaya was living in Washington D.C when she made the decision to kick life in the butt. The eternal student, she was looking at yet another degree to remain in the country legally when she finally questioned what it was she really wanted from life. Keen on film making, Zaya needed to do something drastic to kick start her life into a new trajectory. Rather than take another class she decided to save up, load up her credit cards, filled a bag full of cameras and booked herself to do all five adventure trails on offer from The Adventurists, aimed to complete them in one year and film the whole experience.

The first four included; the Mototaxi Junket in Peru - where participants scale the Andes, jungle and river crossings in a three wheeled motorcycle taxi; Indonesia on a Tuk-Tuk - island hopping in the country's version of a mototaxi; The Ice Run - on a Ural (motorcycle with side car) through sub zero, snow covered Siberia; and The Rickshaw run - starting from the Southern tip of India to the north east end, in a rickshaw. While all of these where completed in moto taxis or three wheeled cycles, they where really the “practice” run in the lead up to her final and most arduous of the adventures, The Mongol Rally.