It’s a great era for Women’s BMX with so much talent springing up in droves. Today we’re learning about another UK rider by the name of Michelle Sikorska, better known as @mish2353.
Age: 20
Hometown: Biała Podlaska/Tewkesbury (Born in Poland, but grew up since 10yo in England)
Sponsors: Into the Streets – A brand and team of riders on bringing street spots to people and showing fun in the streets
When did you start riding?
I started riding back in 2014, my first proper BMX that I could do tricks on was a Mafia Kush, in the Rasta colourway. I adored that bike and it was what really hooked me on BMX for the first year I rode it until I, unfortunately, managed to find myself in a sticky situation of my back wheel under a car’s front bumper that I managed to get hit by. This broke my wheel and me not knowing that I could build myself a new wheel for cheap left me not riding BMX until 2016, and I didn’t start learning tricks again until around 2017 after my first ever custom BMX got stolen and I ended up with a Cult complete that sparked my joy for BMX again.
Your style of riding reminds me of an OG American rider by the name of Samantha Lyons from Washington State – street nibs, bonks and such. How was your style of riding developed, and who are your influences?
When I very first started riding, I was very much influenced by the likes of BMX YouTubers like Adam LZ and Boqer123, Boqer who is actually based in the town next to mine and I have managed to session with a few times. These guys really got me into BMXing and showed me all the different tricks there were in BMX. At first flowing and park was something that I really wanted to get involved in, due to watching Harry Main and getting his signature hyper frame, however, my local park didn’t allow for such manoeuvres. Along with this YouTube influence, I also had my only BMX friend who I rode my local with, and he was quite street, so he definitely sparked my love for bonks and other similar stuff since 2016. He taught me the “stylish” way of getting out of a fakie which was the quick little slider, and I may or may not have fallen in love with the more jibbby street style of riding since then.
From the girl’s side of things, my biggest early influences must’ve been Chelsea Wolfe, and Kayley Ashworth. Both are incredibly rad riders, and Chelsea’s edit on the come-up years ago got me thinking about how I want to ride because her edit had a lot of different styles in it. Kayley is just amazing and has always inspired me, especially recently through her recovery from the spinal injury. Ever since we actually started hanging out in 2021 I got an even bigger love for BMX and my spark for big flow riding has been ignited again, and hopefully one day I will be able to blast jumps just like she does!
Overall though, I take a lot of influence from people around me, YouTube and really sick little edits on Instagram that come up on my feed. However, my riding mostly depends on which area of BMX I decide to hyperfocus on at the time. It seems that whenever I go out for a session I have a pre-planned line or trick in my head which I will try until I land it, run out of breath or think of something similar while trying said first trick. When I’m in this mind space I forget a lot of the tricks that I can do usually, which unfortunately has made me unlearn a few stunts here and there. Thank god for Instagram and my ungodly amount of posting which reminds me of spots and lines or tricks so that I can look back and revisit them and improve on them.
Where would we typically find you riding, your top three spots?
- My local which is Mitton skatepark in Tewkesbury, just because it’s convenient
- Bristol, literally anywhere in that city because there’s spots everywhere you look
- Cheltenham, because it’s 8 minutes on the train and more interesting than Tewkesbury haha
Who are your go-to BMX mates?
Andrew, also known as Street._.dogg on instagram, got me into filming on proper equipment (aka Sony A series) rather than my phone and gets me to break out of my comfort zone whenever we ride together. Kayley Ashworth, I will session with her whenever I can even though at the best of times we aren’t too close together we still make it work through the power of friendship. And then it all depends on where my spontaneity takes me on an adventure the given day, and I end up deciding which mates to message then upon the location of choice!
Top 5 songs to get you into the riding mood
- Whatever
- Myy
- SoundCloud
- Recommends
- Me
It all depends on my mood for the day, but I guess at the moment I love listening to Enjoy the Silence by Depeche Mode and anything similar to that.
Outside of BMX, are you in school, or do you work? What’s the life of normal Mish like?
Outside of BMX, I go to university to study graphic design, which is a lot of fun. I have been working since the age of 16, so 2017, and have gone through a few jobs since such as waitressing, pub work, housekeeper at a hotel and then most recently I had a night shift receptionist job at that same hotel but decided to quit due to the night work draining me on weekends. Since March this year until about 3 weeks ago I have been a professional bum, aka jobless, and I had the best time of my life enjoying the freedom and the stress of uni assignments and deadlines piling up.
However now since summer has started for me and now I’m an admin for a graphic design agency 2 days a week, my usual everyday routine is to get up in the morning, check out all of my socials and get ready for the day and then I usually choose one to go out and ride my BMX whether it’s just to cruise or have a session, and then in the evening come back home and edit videos, photos or do some art and watch YouTube. Obviously, on the two days I work, I get up, go to work and then do job stuff till 5 pm and then see where the rest of the day takes me which is usually outside.
Tell us about your Youtube channel!
My YouTube channel is basically just me sharing my BMX sessions with others. I film whether I’m riding alone or with others, although I enjoy filming and posting videos where it’s just me and my fiancée, Maisie, the most. This is because we have a very jokey dynamic with each other and I know that she enjoys making these videos with me, whereas some people that I ride with don’t always seem too stoked on the idea of YouTube in general so I tend to edit those bits out or include them as pure clips.
The way I started posting my riding session vlogs was through recording clips for my Instagram and then just extending the videos to be a longer format for YouTube compared to what you would find on my Instagram. My first few non-edit videos on my channel were never any longer than 2 minutes and to be frank they were quite cringeworthy and boring. I sometimes re-watch my videos from 3+ years ago to traumatize myself, but also to see how far I’ve come in making videos.
Overall, on my channel, you will find plenty of videos of me riding, whether it’s all by myself, with one other person or with a group of people. I happen to be the only BMXer in my town by the looks of things so I don’t have a regular crew to ride with, so I make do with what I have and have fun while doing it. I try to edit my videos in a format that I would find enjoyable to watch, which is to crack jokes and make video memes out of whatever I can. Basically, imagine the attention span of a toddler full of caffeine and crack and that’s my attention span but put in a video format. The more funny videos tend to be the ones where it’s a session on my own or with Maisie or Andrew, and with others, they’re usually your more standard BMX vlogs. I’m trying to stay on a weekly upload schedule but recently with the amount of jams and uni work I’ve been doing it’s been hard and I’m still catching up, but hopefully over the summer I will get back to posting a whole load more, especially since I have just reached 500 subs.
So in short, my channel is a girl on her BMX with a questionable sense of humour and the shortest attention span you’ve ever seen, most likely to be found making fun of herself while doing stunts.
How is the UK women’s scene developing? The good things, the bad in between.
The UK women’s scene has been developing incredibly well. In the past 2 years, so many girls have picked up a BMX and fallen in love with it. Honestly compared to when I was first getting into BMX to now, the scene in the UK has taken off quite a lot and it’s been so nice to see, although in my area there still aren’t any new girls to ride with, but I don’t blame them there’s nothing good to ride here! There’s especially been a lot of younger girls getting into BMX and that’s been incredible to see and they all progress sooooo fast, especially my two little favourites which are roo_rides and @pint_sized_cyclist (Daisy). The few times I have gotten to ride with them I had an incredible time and honestly that alone gives me a lot of hope for the women’s UK scene to develop even more than it already has. The scene has in fact gotten so good that we have a regular group of lady shredders I get to meet up with and even though we come together for a session from all over the country we still manage to have the best time ever. Every time one of these group sessions happen, it makes me so glad to be a part of this community.
To be honest, bad-wise, there really isn’t anything to say there. As far as I’m aware we all get along just fine, we don’t have any drama, whenever we meet up we always have a blast. We’re all here to do the same thing which is ride bikes! The only bad thing I can think of is that we all can’t actually meet up at once and ride hahaha, that would be one hell of a session though if it was ever possible to organize.
Who is an up-and-coming rider you’re looking forward to see develop?
Well apart from the two little girls that I’ve already mentioned, the obvious is Aubree, she is the best little street shredder I have ever come across. I love her passion for the sport, and her progress is so inspiring to watch. She and her dad make the absolute dream team and I know that she will be an amazing street rider when she grows up because to be hip nest she already is amazing at what she does. I think that she is going to be the Garrett Reynolds of female street BMX.
Honestly though, as a whole, the woman’s side of things in BMX has developed so much over the past few years and I think we all will be much better riders in a few years. It feels like all the girls in BMX are pushing the boundaries as a collective and raising the standard overall, so realistically all of us are up and coming!
Where will Mish be in 5 years?
I think that I will be still doing YouTube, with a sick graphic designer job and still madly in love with my BMX, and hopefully, by then I will be well versed in all the different obstacles that BMX offers, whether its street park or dirt. I want to do it all. Oh yeah and probably gonna be living on a boat with Maisie and a boat cat, cause your house can travel at that point so why wouldn’t I wanna do that? I could be throwing parties on water, which sounds like a blast, or building a ramp on a boat etc, the possibilities are endless.
