The Trek Race Shop is pleased to announce Kathryn Bertine as their newest cycling ambassador. Bertine is a retired professional rider, author, activist and documentary filmmaker. As an advocate for positive change in women’s sport, she will be Trek’s Ambassador for equality in cycling and work with the Trek brand as well as the Trek-Segafredo road teams.
I'm thrilled to join forces with Trek, as they truly believe in equality and in making change happen. The fact they've created Trek-Segafredo as an equal opportunity team with both men's and women's squads at the World Tour level is a game-changer. Trek is doing something all sponsors/team owners should be doing: investing equally in women. Trek also knows there is still more work to be done for equality in cycling; like media exposure, race opportunity and prize money equity. We're tackling those issues together. I look forward to working with Trek to make our sport a better, strong and more inclusive sport for women at every level.
-- Kathryn Bertine
Bertine started the social activism movement Le Tour Entier in an effort to bring parity to women’s professional road cycling, starting with the Tour de France. She and her team succeeded, and a women’s field was included in 2014 with the addition of La Course by Tour de France. Her documentary film “Half the Road: The passion, pitfalls & power of women’s pro cycling” debuted in 2014, winning five film festivals & gaining international distribution.
In 2017, Kathryn founded the Homestretch Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides temporary housing and other resources to professional or elite athletes—primarily female athletes—who face financial and economic discrepancies
The mission of The Homestretch Foundation is to level the playing field of salary discrepancy in sport, so that female professional athletes have the same wages and equal opportunities as male professional athletes. Regardless of an athlete’s socioeconomic and/or life circumstances, we want all women to pursue their careers as athletes without compromise, inequality or injustice.
-- Kathryn Bertine
Bertine’s advocacy for equality in cycling lines up well with Trek’s philosophy, but there’s a personal story, too.
Trek helped me out twenty years ago as I began my quest to become a pro triathlete in 1999. They stayed with me in 2009, during my transition to pro cycling. Now, in 2019, we're working together again after my pro cycling career. They've had my back since day one, and I couldn't be more thrilled to continue this great relationship.
-- Kathryn Bertine
