One of off-road pro cycling’s most gregarious personalities has started a podcast. Durango’s Sarah Sturm launched the “Talking Over You” podcast, featuring Sarah and her sister, Hannah, on Wednesday.
The podcast will focus on cycling topics with a mix of humor and expertise along with some thoughts on local and current events.
Sarah has thought about starting a podcast for the last two or three years. She’s always been able to talk and has always loved doing it. Sarah loves connecting with people and specifically Hannah.
Podcasts have also been a big part of Sarah’s routine. She listens to two to three podcasts a day, often during her training rides.
Ever since Sarah moved to Durango when she was 18, Hannah has been her closest friend. Sarah knows she can turn to her sister about anything from haircuts, business decisions and race results.
“I knew that I wanted to do a talk-style podcast,” Sarah said. “Those are the ones that I love the most when it's just two co-hosts talking and you can kind of feel like you're enjoying a conversation that you don't have to put any social effort into as you're listening. I was thinking about for years who I would want as a co-host and Hannah and I think we're funny, but she's just an easy person that I can like riff with.”
Sarah values Hannah’s prospective on cycling and on business. Hannah recently successfully opened the Hand in Hand Shop in Mancos. Sarah values her sister’s business experience as Hannah knows the highs and lows of starting a business. Sarah knows starting anything is scary and vulnerable; launching a podcast is in line with that.
While Sarah has over a decade of racing bikes at the highest level, Hannah brings a different prospective of not riding at all. Sarah taught her to ride a bike when Hannah was 28 and the sisters even did a few mountain bike rides together. However, Hannah didn’t catch the riding bug after those rides and knew it wasn’t for her.
The dichotomy between the sisters will be one of the hallmarks of the podcast. Sarah brings the cycling insider’s prospective on topics while Hannah will offer a fresh, outsider’s prospective on things. Sarah really enjoys this dynamic because she knows how she sometimes forgets how ingrained she is in the sport.
“Talking Over You” will be produced by Payson McElveen’s media company. McElveen’s “With Pace” podcast is very successful so Sarah felt comfortable going forward with the project, especially since she knew it would have a professional look. Sarah brought up the idea to McElveen about a year ago; she trusts McElveen’s opinion on business so when he thought it would be a winning product, Sarah went forward with the project.
“I didn't want to brand it specifically only cycling, which is why we went with ‘Talking Over You’ in the name and not ‘Sarah's Cycling Podcast,”’ Sarah said. “I wanted to keep it pretty vague, because I have a couple of ideas of potential interviews that I want to do. But, it's really just people that I really appreciate and I know that I will rift well with and the conversation will be interesting.”
Sarah saw a need for a talk-based format in the cycling podcasting space because there are so many interview-based podcasts. She loves that the podcast with Hannah will be both sport and comedy-based with some serious topics like mental health, women in sports and weight fluctuations. The sisters have already talked about events in Durango and Mancos.
At the same time, Sarah knows since she’s always traveling, she has access to a lot of interesting people to potentially interview.
Four episodes of “Talking Over You” are already out on YouTube, Spotify and Apple. The plan is for an hourlong episode to drop every Wednesday.
“I hope that it sheds light on different parts of the sport,” Sarah said. “Things can feel a little bit stagnant. Hopefully we’re making a complicated, exclusive sport feel a little more fun and inclusive, because there's a lot of people out there that might not know about cycling yet, who hopefully will discover it through the podcast.”
bkelly@durangoherald.com
