WATERLOO, Wis. (BRAIN) — A three-day meeting of over 100 women bike advocates is taking place this week at the Trek headquarters here.
The third annual Trek Women's Advocates includes seminars with Trek's marketing, engineering, design, retail, manufacturing, and product development teams. Advocates will learn tools that will help strengthen the relationship between women riders and retailers in their hometowns.
Since its creation in 2016, the program has doubled in size, with 104 women, representing partner retailers and Trek stores.
"Advocacy for women's cycling is a grass roots effort," said Trek's global women's marketing manager, Emily Bremer, "and this program is making a true impact on communities across North America. We see this in the growing number of women joining the sport where our advocates are placed."
The advocates were chosen from a pool of over 300 applicants. "With the continued growth of this program and more advocates in the field now even more communities will benefit from the passion and enthusiasm of our advocates," Bremer said.
In addition to attending seminars with Trek leadership, the advocates will meet two of Trek Factory Racing's premier female athletes: World Champion triathlete Holly Lawrence and World Champion downhiller Rachel Atherton.
Trek also recently launched a marquee women's professional road team and next month will host the second annual World Cup Waterloo, an elite cyclocross race that made history last year when it became the first World Cup cyclocross event to offer equal payout to the women's and men's fields. At this year's event, Trek will again create waves with a decision to make the elite women's race the marquee event of the weekend, taking the final race spot usually reserved for the elite men.