On Instagram, Amy Bradshaw has tagged herself @oldlady_skater, an identity which she celebrates. Over the years she has documented her skateboarding progress in photos and videos, her wavy silver hair flowing, and has garnered a devoted following.
Amy was born in Inglewood, CA in 1964 and started skating around age 9. In an interview for S One helmets, Amy shared that, “I was 5th of 6 sisters. One of my older sisters had a skateboard. We all sort of shared everything. The first one had metal wheels. It was just one thing to do. We were outside kids, riding bikes, skates, skateboards… I got pretty good on it… Then I guess in about 1976 I found Urethane wheels and the San Gabriel river. It was a giant concrete banked riverbed and I became obsessed with it” (2023).
Photo: Ken Hada
Amy became a regular at the Skatopia Skatepark after it opened in 1977 considering that her sister’s boyfriend worked there, and she had Kim Adrian to look up to as the local bad ass female skater. One day at the park, Vans was having a try-out event for their amateur team. “I really didn’t want to try out but you could only skate if you were skating in the tryouts. So I tried out just so that I could skate for the day and I ended up making the Vans team.”
Vans founder, Paul Van Doren actively supported the skateboarding community and explained in his memoir that, “Each Vans store manager was encouraged to choose seven or eight skateboarders and supply them with shoes, and the skateboard companies donated their boards. Vans soon became an important partner and sponsor of the sport.” This meant that Amy, along with other girls like Elaine Poirier, Sunshine Lee, and Yvonne Cucci, were some of the earliest Vans riders, along with more prominent competitors like Deanna Calkins, Edie Robertson, Ellen Oneal, Gale Webb, Jana Payne, Terry Lawrence, and Cara-beth Burnside.
Photo: Ken Hada
Amy enjoyed her time with Vans, sometimes performing demonstrations at Knott’s Berry Farm and the Magic Mountain Six Flags theme parks, but then she followed Kim’s lead and joined the Sims team. Amy had some solid contest results like the California Skateboard State Championships in 1978, placing 4th in pipe riding for Girls 13 and over, and in 1979 in Anaheim at the Hobie Amateur Bowl contest at the Big “O” skatepark she had a 2nd place in the bowl event for Girls 14 and over. She even took a first place for Sponsored Girls 14-15 in freestyle in front of massive crowd of spectators at the Oceanside Freestyle contest in 1979, although freestyle routines were something Amy dreaded. But these details of her skateboarding origins have never been Amy’s focus, considering that contests were more about catching up with friends and exploring an unfamiliar skatepark.
Amy stopped skating around age 15 with all the skateparks closing and high school beginning, but in her thirty-year hiatus, she never stopped thinking about skateboarding. “During that time if I would see a freeway off-ramp, you know, like with the concrete in between or underpasses or overpasses, I’d always think, ‘I could skate that.’… I thought about it all the time. Even when I wasn’t skating, I was still a skater on the inside.”
Photos: Amy in 2010, Amy in 2014 @ Karen Rennie, and Amy with Barb Odanaka @ Nicholas Buckminster Mattson for the Atascadero News 2015
When Amy was in her early 40s, she decided that she had done her time “adulting” like work, marriage, and kids, and when her old Skatopia buddy Ken Hada invited her to skate, she went for it and never stopped – the muscle memory was still there. Amy even became a regular with the Skateboard Moms and Sisters of Shred crew, launched by Barbara Odanaka in 2004, encouraging her peers to take up skateboarding. There’s an awesome quote in a promo video for the crew where Amy says skateboarding is “more fun than doing laundry or washing dishes.” And, based on her Instagram activity, I would bet that she skates more today as a retired person than as a kid.
In an interview from May 2023, Amy said, “I skate a lot lately. I went a couple weeks ago to the Orchid Ranch with a group of women. It’s a wooden skatepark in a beautiful setting near Santa Barbara. We were all different abilities, but we each had a goal. Everyone was pushing and laughing. We really enjoyed ourselves. There’s a cool thing that happens in sessions where you really want to land your tricks and your friends help you believe it can happen. It comes out of nowhere. Kind of like magic!”
Photos: Ken Hada 2017
Amy has even returned to contests on occasion. In 2017, she won The OG Jam Series for senior skaters at the Venice skatepark, hitting the extension and grinding the pool coping with style and confidence, and followed it up with a 3rd place finish in 2018. She was also acknowledged at the 3rd Annual Venice Ladies Jam in 2018, competing against sixteen riders in the 25 and over category.
Photos: Ian Logan 2018 OG Skate Jam / Ryan Halub 2017 / Gale Webb 2017
What truly resonated from Amy’s story during her conversation with Hada was her acknowledgement that skateboarding “saved me twice.” It was a positive way to occupy her time as a misfit teenager, and for the last fifteen years it’s been this incredible outlet for adventure and friendship.
Amy has become an inspiration to so many by simply doing what she loves and sharing her progress without coming across like a marketing campaign, which is refreshing on social media. Whether she’s skating curbs, getting momentum on a pump track, jumping fences to access a stealthy spot, or cruising infinite lines on a snake-run, Amy has presence, and her account is what I turn to in anticipation of a skateboard session to get me psyched.
Plus, seeing Amy out skating in the California sunshine with best buddy Julie Daniels @jeezysk8s is so motivating. To Hada, Amy explained that “We just skate because it’s freaking fun. We like to go somewhere new and then we’ll kind of push other like we’re going to dial this in. We’re gonna skate hard, learn new shit… it’s just ridiculous, we’re ridiculous!” I think they are the coolest! Bring on retirement.
References:
- Hada, Ken. “The History of Women’s Skateboarding,” Facebook Video, June 21, 2020.
- S One Helmet Blog. “Interview w/Amy Bradshaw @oldlady_skater,” May 5, 2023.
- Van Doren, Paul. Authentic: a memoir by the founder of Vans, (Charleston, Vertel Publishing, 2021): 153.
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