Natalie Justice is the project manager for the highly successful Breeze program by British Cycling. Its aim is to encourage more women into, or back into, cycling, using a network of trained volunteers or Champions to lead easy, accessible rides in their local areas. Natalie’s leadership has been a key element in the projects success.

“I think representation is a difficult issue. It’s hard to get the balance between ‘any exposure is good’ and whether people are looking at the images for the right reasons. Personally I think 2012 was a real turning point in media exposure for women; we started to see more coverage celebrating athleticism, and about the women as athletes.

However this does not appeal to everyone and the coverage is still too rare. Female cyclists have only really recently been exposed in their own right, as great cyclists not just great ‘female cyclists’, which is how it should continue. Female cyclists should be talked about because of their skill and ability as great cyclists – whatever their discipline.

On a non-sporty level I think we are making waves! We are normalizing getting on a bike for women, celebrating normal, everyday role models and hopefully breaking down the barriers by using the right imagery. However we still hit the same problem on scale – we struggle to get things out to the masses across the media. That why campaigns like ‘This Girl Can’ will help, as the scale is enormous.

In a nutshell I think things are getting better, but I hope we don’t become overly thankful for this, like we should be grateful that it’s better than it was. We don’t want complacency to creep in.”