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Kara Bruce Talks Getting Started—and Making a Life—in BMX
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At Joyride150, the indoor bike park in Markham, ON, where Shred Girls: Lindsay’s Joyride will be hosting our launch party on May 11, Kara Bruce is probably practicing a new trick on her BMX bike, if she’s not working behind the counter. Joyride150 is packed with awesome women shredding BMX, from Sarah Dinel to Desi Smith to Kierstyn William to Leila Raposa and Kara. It’s taken us a year to nail down an interview, but we finally made time at the Joyride150 Women’s Weekend to talk all things BMX.
When did you get into cycling?
I used to skateboard and got a bike when I was 22, I went to Rampworks in England, and started riding in women’s events—skateparks were too intimidating to ride with the guys at first. But the women’s riding scene there was really good. The UK has a lot of girls into downhilling and BMX and fixed gear—I’ve met so many progressive women there.
Why shift from skating?
I didn’t like the lifestyle of skateboarding, honestly. But bikes, I liked in the UK and got more into it when I moved back to Ontario because there were so many rad women working at Joyride150 when I started coming. I moved back here five years ago. My grandparents live 90 minutes from here and I travel a lot, I still go back to the UK a lot, but I always come back to Ontario for Joyride150. People ask why I’d come back to Ontario in the winter, but I say it’s because Joyride150 is here, because I can ride no matter what the weather is. And this park is so great for having graded sections for beginner, intermediate and advanced. It gives you a chance to really learn.
Best advice you’ve gotten?
I need two things learning a new trick: space to myself to practice, but one person around to make sure I’m OK and don’t hurt myself! For tricks, I find that women, when we’re young, are encouraged in a different way. When girls fall, we’re taught to be nervous and be worried that we’re not OK. Because of that, now we’re both afraid of falling and embarrassed when we do fall. But being OK with falling is part of learning a skill!
Worst advice you’ve gotten?
Oh man. When I was a beginner, not to be sexist, but boys tend to say stuff like ‘just do it,’ ‘send it’ ‘go harder, go faster.’ But that’s not how most people learn. So, there’s a trick I do sometimes, a 270 Smith. Go up, do a 270, land in a smith on the other side. When I’m practicing, I always have guys coming over and telling me how to ‘disaster,’ and I’m always thinking, that’s not what I’m trying to do, I’m trying to do a 270 Smith. The more advanced I get, I don’t get that as much—but as a beginner, people come try to help and the advice isn’t always helpful. So don’t feel like you have to take advice from everyone. ‘Just send it’ isn’t always great advice.
Best beginner advice?
Find friends to ride with! And break skills down into smaller sections. A lot of the time, if you can break a trick down into bits and pieces, you learn the trick a lot better. You can try to just send it, but if you don’t learn how it works on a technical level, you won’t progress. It’s like playing piano, you need to learn scales and notes before you can play a whole song, and if you don’t learn that stuff and just learn to play one song, you won’t be able to play other songs.
How do you make friends in bikes?
I have been told by quite a few of the girls that I’m the one friend that will just start talking and make everyone be your friend. ‘Hey, I’m Kara—want to come ride?’ And it works! When I was a kid, I was super shy, though. But moving to different countries and being the foreign one, I had to learn to go first and figure that out. I find you have to get out of your comfort zone sometimes—it helps with making friends and it helps you with your riding!
Best thing a new rider can do?
Start from the bottom up. Confidence is the hardest thing to teach, so I think it’s super important to start from the bottom and get those early wins.
Follow Kara on Instagram for more radness (and make sure you follow @Shred.Girls too!)
