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Flipping the Script: What Happens When You Build a Team Around Girls First?

What happens when girls are not just included, but centered? When a team is intentionally built around their experience, their voices, and their growth? The result is confidence, belonging, leadership, and a culture where girls feel comfortable showing up fully as themselves.

By Talia Hodgson

For many girls in mountain biking, being outnumbered shapes how they participate, speak up, take risks, and whether they stay in the sport at all. Programs like the Saratoga Shredders show what can happen when girls are given space to build skills, friendships, and confidence together from the start.

Not every NICA team can build a girls-first program in the same way, but every team can learn from this approach. Whether through GRiT Give it a Go events, girls-only rides, new rider groups, or intentionally creating stronger connections and belonging for girls on a team, coaches have opportunities to help more student-athletes thrive. Student-athlete Talia Hodgson from the Saratoga Shredders Composite team shares what it has meant to grow up in a girls-first mountain bike program and what becomes possible when girls are given spaces where they can truly thrive.

Below, Talia explains what it meant to start out in a girls-first team culture:

 

“The impact Saratoga Shredders has had on my life is incredible.”

The Shredders are a NICA team located in Saratoga Springs, New York, whose main goal is to get more kids on bikes. When I joined the Saratoga Shredders, it was a girls-only team. They prioritize kindness and teamwork over race results and aggressiveness on the trail. The environment Shredders has created helped me, and hundreds of other girls, gain confidence both on and off the bike.

Mountain biking is a male-dominated sport, but I have always known it as a sport for girls. I started mountain biking when I was 10 years old with the Saratoga Shredders. At the time it was completely girls-only. The girls-only environment was all I knew. When I got a little older and joined the Shredders Devo team, which has both boys and girls on it, I thought it was funny how many boys there were that liked a “girls” sport. Even with the boys on the team now, Shredders still has a lot more girls than people might expect for a mountain bike team. Because Shredders has so many girls on the team, I don’t have to worry about feeling out of place when going to practice. I know it’s a safe space to talk about my female experiences, and I know I will always be greeted with kindness. I feel comfortable expressing myself, and I don’t have to worry that I’m being too much when I come to practice, which girls in male dominated places often feel. Being able to go to practice and talk to my friends motivates me to be a better athlete and keep showing up everyday.

Shredders has taught me that I can use my voice. I am not afraid to pass men on the trail, even if they don’t always take it well. I am not afraid to start in a field with other men because I know I can hold my own. A female-only space allowed me to hone my skills in a supportive environment. The confidence I gained while being surrounded by other women and girls was able to be transferred out into the “real world”. I am able to take my confidence to races and to group rides but take this confidence with me everywhere I go. I feel that I can assert my opinion on board meetings and participate in class because of the confidence Shredders has given me. Being surrounded by my best friends at practice everyday has given me a supportive place to grow and learn and become a better athlete as well as a better person.

Girls’ only spaces are important. Having the opportunity to grow skills in a setting without the macho, male energy is very helpful for young girls and women to gain confidence. It is unfortunate that many girls feel afraid to enter a male dominated environment, but having more girls on a team can really make a difference. Having spaces where girls feel safe being themselves is helping create a world were more women feel self-assured and unafraid to participate in sports and everyday life.

From head coach Anna Laloë, on the Impetus for starting a girls-only team

The idea for a girls-only program started in a very personal place – I have two daughters, and I wanted them to grow up riding alongside other girls. After years of lining up at race starts with only a handful of women at local MTB races in the northeast, I knew I had to be intentional about changing that.I launched Shredders as a girls-only program in 2020 to create a space where girls could build skills, confidence, and community together from the start.

One of the most effective ways we’ve found to bring more girls into the sport is to create girls-only opportunities—events, programs, and teams led by strong (and fun!) female coaches. For teams looking to shift their gender balance, a great place to start is by recruiting more women—especially moms—as coaches, and by consistently offering girls-only and women-only experiences. When girls see themselves reflected in leadership and feel like a space is truly designed for them, everything changes.

This content was authored by NICA’s coach education team. NICA’s comprehensive coach education program provides new and existing coaches with the high-quality training and resources they need to be confident, competent, and empowered leaders on their youth mountain bike teams. NICA coaches not only create amazing experiences for student-athletes, they create a foundation for building healthy mountain bike communities. NICA coaches change lives! 

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Special thanks to SPECIALIZED, a NICA platinum level partner.

NICA partners help kids gain access to a thriving and engaged cycling community.

Special thanks to SPECIALIZED, a NICA platinum level partner.

NICA partners help kids gain access to a thriving and engaged cycling community.

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