Kathryn Bertine is an author, athlete, activist and documentary filmmaker. During her pro career in cycling, she was a three-time Caribbean Champion, six-time national champion of St. Kitts and Nevis (SKN) and raced five years on pro circuit with four UCI domestic and World Tour teams Colavita, Wiggle-Honda, BMW and Cylance Pro Cycling. She retired from racing in 2017 but remains active in advancing equity for women’s pro cycling.
Off the bike, Bertine is a filmmaker, activist, journalist and author of four nonfiction books, All the Sundays Yet to Come, As Good As Gold, The Road Less Taken, and STAND: A memoir on activism. A manual for progress. From 2006 through 2012, Bertine was a columnist, author and senior editor for ESPN. When she pitched a documentary film on women’s pro cycling to ESPN in 2012, they rejected the proposal. So Bertine decided she would make it herself. After a two-year labor of love and crowdsourcing adventures, in 2014, HALF THE ROAD: The passion, pitfalls and power of women’s professional cycling was released. It won five film festivals, debuted in 16 nations, scored international distribution and successfully brought the hammer down on the corruption and sexism in sports. Half the Road is now available on iTunes, Vimeo, Amazon Prime and DVD. Five years later, she continues to receive royalties on a film ESPN said no one would watch. STAND was named a finalist in two categories of IndieBookAwards; Best Memoir and Best Social Change.
As an advocate for equality in women’s sports, Bertine then 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 after a 30 year hiatus of women at Tour de France, the women’s field was finally included in 2014 with the addition of La Course by Tour de France, (later evolved into Tour de France Femmes 2022). In 2016, she founded (and currently serves as CEO for) Homestretch Foundation, which provides free housing to female professional athletes struggling with the gender pay gap. Bertine was featured on the cover of Bicycling Magazine and profiled in Outside Magazine for her platforms of implementing change in the world.
In 2023, Kathryn was named University of Arizona Alumna of the Year for her work in activism for equal opportunity.
As an activist, Bertine continues to serve as a public speaker/lecturer on equality and advocacy. She shares her journey and her message—that through passion, disruption, opportunity and focus, anything is possible and we’re all capable of effecting change—with corporations, universities and other professional outlets. She is currently at work on her fifth book. A native of Bronxville, NY she lives in Tucson, AZ. She holds a BA from Colgate University and an MFA from the University of Arizona and a PhD from The School of Hard Knocks. You can follow her on Twitter & Facebook: @KathrynBertine @HalfTheRoad @LeTourEntier @HomestretchFdn. Instagram: @kathryn_bertine & @homestretchfdn and www.kathrynbertine.com www.halftheroad.com www.letourentier.comwww.homestretchfoundation.org