FIVE THINGS WITH CYCLIST AND "SHRED GIRLS" AUTHOR MOLLY HURFORD
FIVE THINGS is a feature on the Banjo Brothers Blog. It’s a short interview about life and bicycles with a notable person. This week's notable person is Molly Hurford.
Molly Hurford is a journalist in love cycling, running, nutrition and all things outdoors. When not outside, she's writing about being outside, travel, and athletic style on TheOutdoorEdit.com, or interviewing world-class athletes and scientists for The Consummate Athlete Podcast, which she co-hosts with her husband.
Molly is obsessed with getting more women psyched on adventure and wellness, and hosts talks and coaches clinics and camps for cyclists. She’s also the author of multiple books on cycling and nutrition, including “Saddle, Sore: Ride Comfortable, Ride Happy,” and writes for Outside, Bicycling and many other adventure-focused publications. Her most recent project, Shred Girls, is a young adult fiction series (and website) focused on getting girls excited about bikes.
We hope you enjoy this week's Banjo Brothers Five Things.
BANJO BROS: WHAT ARE YOU RIDING?
MH: While I always want to shout out my Moots Psychlo-RX ‘cross bike, which is the love of my life, I’ve actually been putting in surprisingly huge miles on my Trek Emonda lately. Which I also love, don’t get me wrong. A matte black frame? That’s my idea of style… I get seriously grumpy about brightly colored bikes that go out of style after a single season. I know that’s petty, but it matters to me! (And the general geometry/climbing ability of it is great too, of course.)
BANJO BROS: WHERE ARE YOU RIDING?
MH: I’ve been assistant coaching a camp out in SoCal that involved a ton of climbing with some speedy young women from Canada, and that meant I had to dust off my road bike to prep, and then spend a ton of hours climbing and descending along the Santa Monicas in the last couple weeks. It’s been a while since I’ve ridden this much, so it’s been a really great few weeks getting used to big hours again — I forgot how much I enjoy it! Least/most favorite: Climbing Old Topanga and Fernwood here in LA right now. It’s a long climb and gets super steep so it’s the worst, but it’s also kind of the best — and the view at the end is solid.
Shred Girls: Lindsay’s Joyride comes out soon, and a few early reader parents have told me that reading the book convinced their daughters to try cycling.
BANJO BROS: WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO, READING OR WATCHING?
MH: I’m a huge book nerd and run a monthly book club, The Athletic Bookworms, over on my website, and this month we’re reading Scott and Jenny Jurek’s NORTH, about the Appalachian Trail FKT. I love that they co-wrote it so you can see the journey from both sides. (Any arguments they have, I’m Team Jenny.) I’m also re-reading my own draft of the second book in the Shred Girls series (the first one is out in May with Random House!), and — because again, huge nerd here, I’m re-reading all of the Bridget Jones books by Helen Fielding because they’re amazing
BANJO BROS: WHAT ARE YOU COOKING, EATING/DRINKING?
MH: Literally everything and anything, since I’ve been riding so much! Oatmeal with peanut butter, brown sugar, and sea salt is the #1 thing that I end up craving when I’m on the bike a lot, so I’ve been going through that like crazy. Shout out to Trader Joes Rolled Oats, chunky PB and organic brown sugar. I don’t know what TJs does to make it so good but for some reason, that’s my jam. Also heavily into their cauliflower tabouli. It’s delicious. And since I’m in the LA area, I have to admit to stopping at In-n-Out a couple times. (Protein style burgers = huge lettuce wraps and they’re amazing.) The last thing I’ll add is I’ve been really liking Klean Athlete’s chocolate whey protein. I rarely hit supplements hard, but when you’re riding this much, I find that it’s hard to get enough protein in by normal means (for me, anyway) and the Klean Athlete protein powder actually tastes decent!
BANJO BROS: WHAT'S STUCK IN YOUR CRAW?
MH: I’m going to go with joyful here. I know I come back to this one a lot, but I’m crazy-excited about how much movement is happening in women’s cycling right now, particularly younger women’s initiatives, and I’m feeling really honored to be part of a bunch of them. I just finished that LA camp with some amazing young women, and I’ll be doing a similar camp next month, then helping Ellen Noble, one of my favorite humans, with her #ENCXQuest in Tucson in March. Before that, I get to spend a weekend at Joyride150, an indoor bike park in Toronto, helping with women’s weekend, which has hundreds of women showing up to get rad. NICA is doing a huge push to get #moregirlsonbikes this year, and the number of female coaches and participants is up. Shred Girls: Lindsay’s Joyride comes out soon, and a few early reader parents have told me that reading the book convinced their daughters to try cycling. The Colorado Classic is women-only. So, the future is looking bright for women on bikes!
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MORE ABOUT THE FIVE THINGS INTERVIEWS FROM BANJO BROTHERS
A big Banjo Brothers thank you to Molly Hurford for participating in this week's edition of Five Things. These short interviews about life and bicycles will appear every Friday on the Banjo Brothers Blog. If you liked this FIVE THINGS from Banjo Brothers you should check our full series of past five things interviews.
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Use the contact form on our website to send us a note. See you next Friday. Also, since you're here, we do need to mention, Banjo Brothers make a whole line of tough, practical and affordable gear for cyclists. Thanks for reading.