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!