OC Women’s Spotlight – Molly Hurford

How long have you been in cycling?

I used to say ‘not very long,’ but I guess at this point, it’s been a while! I wasn’t an athletic kid at all, but I got super into it when I was 19.

How did you get into cycling?

Like I say, when I was a freshman in college nearly 20 years ago, I was a total non-athlete. I decided to get into triathlon (don’t ask why, I have no idea). A friend suggested joining the Rutgers Cycling Team to get better at the bike portion, so I bought a used $200 road bike from my cousin’s boyfriend and joined the team. They convinced me to race road and nagged me into racing cyclocross, which I instantly fell in love with, and the rest is history!

What is your favorite discipline?

Definitely cyclocross. It’s the most fun to race and the most fun to spectate! But ask me which discipline I’m the worst at and it’s also cyclocross. I desperately love the sport, but I don’t do well with that 50-minute race duration. (The same applies to my running, sadly. The longer, the better.)

Who is your favorite cyclist?

Impossible to choose! And because I spend so much of my time interviewing them for Bicycling magazine and Canadian Cycling Magazine, I can’t say because I don’t want to leave anyone out! I’ll say lately, one of the most exciting interviews I’ve gotten to do was with Kristen Faulkner after she got her double gold medals in Paris. That was a big one. So was interviewing Kasia Niewiadoma before last year’s Tour de France Femmes. And even though it was over a decade ago, getting to interview cyclocross legends Marianne Vos and Sven Nys will always be a career highlight.

What has been your favorite in 2024?

Actually, it just happened! We went down to the MTB World Cup in Lake Placid and spent the weekend cheering on the Canadians, watching Cole Punchard and Isabella Holmgren win the U23 races on Saturday. My husband Peter Glassford and I have had the pleasure of being on a few OCA camps with those riders over the years, and to see where they are now is just so incredible. 

What is something you want to see in the future of cycling?

Obviously, I want to see women’s cycling continue to grow! I’d love to see the Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes become equally covered, watched, promoted and paid out races that are the same duration and length. (I’d actually love to see the TDF get shortened and the TDFF get extended so both last about 2 weeks—I think the racing would be SO exciting.) I’d also love to see cyclocross have another boom, I feel like it really lost a bit of its steam with the rise of gravel, but it’s such a beginner-friendly, fun sport. 

 What made you want to get into writing books?

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was two years old! But what got me into writing the Shred Girls series and starting Strong Girl Publishing was the realization that if we want more girls to get into sport, we have to meet them where they are. I was in the library or the bookstore as a kid, not out on the trails. But if I’d been exposed to books about girls in sport, I definitely would have been intrigued. After all, how many of us read Babysitters Club books and started babysitting? What if we could do the same with cycling!