Shift Up Podcast expands with bi-monthly series on gender balance in cycling

Having published 18 episodes since its launch at the start of 2018, the Shift Up Podcast has today announced an expanded content pool with the creation of a new series dedicated to attracting and retaining female talent in the bike biz.

To appear on a bi-monthly basis, the QBP-backed series kicks off today with the episode now appearing at the top of the CyclingIndustry.News homepage (and below).

Presenter Arleigh Greenwald describes the podcast as “near and dear to my heart” explaining that such a series is overdue for the bike business.

“This topic is one that I was focused on for ten years with Bike Shop Girl, and that is attracting and retaining women in cycling and in the bike industry. We are talking to everyone from bike shops, brands, and female cyclists.”

This week’s guests are Shawn Heidgen, QBP’s Women’s Category Sales Manager and Jessica Grenwis, vice president of marketing at QBP.

With a near-term emphasis on building participation among women, QBP has been working to create programmes that are designed quite simply to “get new bums on saddles.”

Grenwis explains: “We realise that in order to come close to achieving our new butts on bikes goal we need to work hard on identifying ways to help retailers, vendors and other industry partners reach and obtain new customers.

“We wanted to help facilitate this conversation to grow women’s participation in cycling and in the industry. QBP has introduced a number of programmes in the past few years that have been successful, but we realise we need to do more.”

QBP sells to around 5,000 bike shops in the USA and thus has a strong reach to push initiatives to drive new participation in cycling.

Among those schemes created by QBP is the Women’s bicycle mechanic scholarship, started in 2015 alongside a number of industry brands, which has thus far supported 76 women’s education at the United Bicycle Institute. The firm is also providing internships for under represented communities and identities again this summer.

To listen in full hit play above!