Lynch competed in road races and time trials, and off-road in cross country, in several world championships. She was not selected for the New Zealand road cycling team for the 1992 Olympics. She believed that omitting her was a mistake and intended to prove it by doing well at that year's Tour de France Féminin. She placed sixth in that race and demonstrated her good form. In 1992, she entered the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in the veteran category and won bronze in both the cross country and the downhill events. When it was announced in 1994 that mountain biking was to become an Olympic discipline, Lynch's focus turned to being picked for the New Zealand team. For that reason, she swapped from the veteran class to elite at the world championships. She became New Zealand's first representative in an Olympic mountain biking event at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. Aged 39, she was the oldest competitor in the event, but managed to achieve eighth place, leaving two previous world champions behind her. She retired from serious competition after the Olympics, with the exception of the first UCI World Cup in April 1997 that was held in New Zealand. Until her mid-40s, she competed at the top level in adventure racing. During her domestic career, Lynch won many national titles, and was a serial winner at premium events such as the Karapoti Classic and the Coast to Coast.