Welcome to Strong Girl Talk, where we dive into the latest in sports science, performance, and well-being—all with a focus on women and girls in sport. This week Sasha and Molly speak with She Sends Foundation’s Executive Consultant Vanessa Hauswald.

Before we dive in, do us a huge favor and make sure you give the podcast 5 stars and click follow:

.

Many of you who listen to our podcast, know the magic of riding bikes. The freedom. The friends. The sense of self-discovery. Knowing that magic, Vanessa shares with us her own two-wheeled journey from discovering coaching cycling to avoid school staff meetings to making bikes more accessible to more students.

When Vanessa left the English classroom, she took over the NorCal Cycling Executive Director position, learning on the fly and asking for help. From there she went to work with NICA (the National Interscholastic Cycling Association), where she’s still the chair of the board of directors.

There are so many important messages in this conversation, from starting to see athletes where there at, remembering to create fun before competition, and the real magic in cycling is creating an environment for everyone to show up authentically to feel seen to spin those pedals.

Before we dove into this conversation with Vanessa, we highlighted some sports news including:

* Highlighting an article from Forbes that women’s sports coverage needs to mature with its audience. Just Women’s Sports CEO Haley Rosen stressed that treating women’s sports “with kid gloves and pink and glitter” doesn’t build sustainable fandom. (Ahem, call us, ESPN!)

* On that note…Western States, where competitors must qualify and yet, there were only 101 women in the 380 spots (almost a 3:1 ratio!). Couple that with the coverage. As Molly eloquently says, what if the race planned the broadcast for the women’s race and fit the men around the women’s coverage instead of always starting with the men’s race and then adding the women’s coverage?

* The Giro d’Italia Women and Sasha’s watching everyday (sometimes challenging herself to watch in French!). In thinking about what’s echoed in the Forbes article, we’d love to see the same coverage as the Men’s Tour de France, including the roll out (yes, I even watch that) but coverage of the whole race and not just partway through. Timing is everything and it seems like with the overlap with the men’s tour stage there isn’t enough bandwidth for all the coverage.

* Mountain Bike World Cup racing returns this weekend before a big 6-week break. The races are in Andorra and we’re curious to see if there is any effect from the nearby wildfires in Spain and France.

Remember you can follow Molly and Sasha on Social Media including:

Molly – @mollyjhurford @stronggirlpublishing

Sasha – @SGollishRuns @Yellow_Running_Shoes

Listen, Subscribe, Rate + Review on Substack | Spotify | iTunes

Get full access to Strong Girl Society at stronggirl.substack.com/subscribe