Rad Girls – BMX Flatland by Paula Callery!

Paula Callery put together this collection of female BMX flatland riders from across the world. Love the community aspect, and Paula’s drive to get this project done! Here’s what Paula had to say:

This edit started out as an idea. As usual it took me a while to figure out if it was a good idea or bad idea, but I just kept thinking about it, and thinking about it. After the thought kept re-occurring in my head over an extended period of time I decided that it had to be a good idea and I was going to do it.
To get the ball rolling I sent out a lot of emails. I set a deadline, and requested a few clips from each girl. At times I had to use an online translators, and my personal interpreter to the far East, Miyuki, helped out tremendously with the Japanese connection. Some girls were injured, some girls were travelling, some girls had technical issues, some girls felt they couldn’t do it at all. Eventually the clips started coming in, and more and more riders were being added to the list.

I sent out more emails, border line harrassing members of the riding community, and pushed hard to get more clips. I hit a plateau at one point of 9 girls, and was shocked at the mediocrity of it. 9 girls? Internationally there are 9 girls that want do do this? I thought about the times before flatland was wide spread over the web.

There was the local scene, then occasionally there would be road trips and you travel to other cities and meet new riders from a different scene. Now we’re so intertwined in social media the globe as become a local scene. I have never really known of a girls scene, but I know I’d like to be in one. So, I set out on a mission; To meet the local members of my all girls social media scene, and came up with 9 riders? I decided this was not acceptable and I had to push back the deadline to whenever it was that I would have at least 10 riders. Then the clips started flowing again. In the end there are 17 riders featured. All girls, from different parts of the world. I know there are more out there, too. I’ll see about doing this every year, and hopefully by then more girls will want to participate and the other girls will have progressed.

The scene will keep changing, riders will come and go, and some will stick it out for the long term, but at least I feel like I’m part of a real girls scene these days. I really want to express my deepest gratitude towards all the girls who participated and trusted me with their riding clips. This became a labour of love and I gave it my best, I hope I don’t disappoint these girls!

10 thoughts on “Rad Girls – BMX Flatland by Paula Callery!

  1. The girls killed it! And Japan has a really good scene!

    I don’t know if they still all ride, but I was expecting some stuff from Erin Donato, Micki Stephens, Jacqueline Nix and maybe Silver?

  2. So good Paula! Looking forward to seeing this scene grow and more videos in the future. It was all great but Rin tearing it up to For Whom the Bell Tolls was a highlight!

  3. AMAZING JOB PAULA AND LADIES!!! you all killed it! so stoked on this! amazing Paula! Badman, I would have loved to have been apart of this but due to opening my own bike shop this year Ive been beyond crazy busy.Thats an understatement actually. I defiantly look forward to next years if it reoccurs! So motivating, all of you ladies are inspiring, thanks for the edit Paula. you went above and beyond!

  4. Paula,

    What a great idea!! keep on thinking because you’ve had such a bright project here!!

    As you said, 9 or 10 riders for the whole world is just incredibly too little… but thanx to you, and your motivation in this project, other girls will certainly join the adventure… I hope so!

    Once again, good job Paula and cheers to every ladies who took part in your video! They all killed it!!

    Looking forward to seeing your next one!!

  5. Thanks for all the kind words everyone! For me it was all worth it just to see Rin shredding to For Whom the Bell Tolls! I’m also surprised no one has brought up Travis doing that turbining half packer at the start. I’m completely thrilled with the turn out of ladies, 17 is awesome! I really wanted to have other girls in it, but I had to accept that some things just weren’t going to work out. At the same time some of the clips I had had for 2 months +, and I was starting to feel it wasn’t fair to some of the riders who had been waiting such a long time, so I had to keep going forward with the project. Again, thanks so much for all the positive feed back! Please share the video and help spread the word-get more girls riding!

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