MOUNTAIN LIFE - Blue Mountains | Spring 2020

42 She makes it look easy, but I’m not fooled. After she pops off her bike, she makes us try to do the same. When she has us sit on the saddle and try to take a corner, I almost fall over, and Lindsay actually does. But she pops right back up, and says that the armor really does work. After a few more practice circles, Phoebe motions for us to follow her to the start of the easiest run on the hill. “Don’t forget—we don’t stop until we’re at the bottom. But it goes fast. I’ll see you in about a minute!” she promises. “Why don’t you go down right behind me, Ali?” she adds, and when I nod (why did I nod?!), she starts pedaling toward the start of the trail, and almost immediately drops out of sight. I take a deep breath and follow her. I can hear Lindsay and Jen arguing about who goes next, but their voices quickly fade into the wind. After a few pedal strokes, I hit the top of the descent and start going downhill. Ahead of me, I can see Phoebe swooping around the first turn, and my heart feels like it’s about to pound out of my chest. The turn is coming, my speed is going up, and I lean into it, forcing myself to keep my eyes open. And suddenly I’m around it and still heading down, but Phoebe is a bit closer than she was before. Then I feel something else: fun. There’s that feeling of wind in my hair, I can see Phoebe ahead of me, and I’m keeping up… Shred Girls: Ali’s Rocky Ride by Molly Hurford is published in Canada by Rodale Kids. Excerpt and illustrations published by permission. The Shred Girls series was born out of trying to solve a problem: statistics show that the dropout rate for girls in sport is at 80 percent between the ages of 8 and 13. How can we fix that? Traditional sports programming works for some girls, but it certainly didn’t work for me. I was a bookworm who refused to run a mile in gym class. What I was willing to do, however, was act as an amateur detective because I loved Nancy Drew mysteries. What if instead of sleuthing, I could write a series about a group of young girls who found their way into riding bikes as a team? As one mom to a young cyclist told me, it is easy for kids—especially girls—to be pigeon-holed as either an athlete or a bookworm, or, to get a little Breakfast Club on the topic, a jock or a princess. My goal is to make sure that girls understand that to be a human is to have many dimensions. –Molly Hurford