OUR
STORY
Every aspect of Radical Wheels will be rooted in culture & community consciousness. Radical Wheels for Radical Humans.
Radical Wheels was founded in 2020 by skaters Olive and Sepi aka Neon. Through their collective work with Queer Skate Alliance and BIPOC Who Skate, these skaters aim to create a wheel brand with a mission. Radical Wheels is invested in growing the skate community across multiple intersections and in making high quality products.
OUR TEAM
Olive
Olive grew up in Milwaukee, WI and a good portion of their early years were spent exploring Midwest roller rinks and practicing break-sk8 routines in the basement. Olive’s roller derby journey began with @sandiegoderbyunited , a banked track roller derby league in San Diego, CA. After playing multiple seasons, and joining @socalderby on the flat track from time to time, Olive sustained a concussion during a double header weekend that ultimately required derby to come to a pause. While not able to play competitively, they focused on the other aspects of skating near and dear to their heart: park skating and skate gear/product development.
Olive’s initial love of park skating ignited @quarterlifeskate and they have enjoyed working with the crews at Sin City Skates, Wicked Skatewear, Juice Wheels, Protec, and Chaya Skates.
After moving to Los Angeles, Olive played derby for @angelcityderby and launched their most recent project, @queerskatealliance. Queer Skate Alliance was created to empower Queer skaters of all backgrounds and seeks to support and work alongside community in every way possible.
Olive currently lives in Portland, OR and is proud to be an important part of the rad crew at @pigeonsrollerskateshop. When roller derby resumes, Olive looks forward to taking the track with @jewishrollerderby.
Every collective skating & skate industry experience has led Olive to where they are today: proud to launch Radical Wheels alongside Neon. There are a lot of changes taking place within the skating community and they have been necessary for a long time. Olive is proud to be a part of these changes and looks forward to seeing more marginalized skaters take up space on the skate industry side of things. No more “by skaters for skaters” unless it’s for ALL skaters, and no more tokenizing of marginalized skaters for “cool factor” while not actually supporting those folks on a deeper level.
Sepi aka Neon
Neon grew up in Los Angeles, CA and started roller skating in 2012, when she joined her local roller derby league in Appleton, WI. In 2014 she was drafted to Madison Roller Derby, where she played for 4 seasons, 2 of which were on the Dairyland Dolls Charter. Neon played with @teamirn_rd at the 2018 Roller Derby World Cup in Manchester, UK. Sadly in March of 2018 during the first place game at Clover Cup an egregious hit to the jaw resulting in a severe concussion ended her roller derby career.
As part of her concussion physical therapy and to retain her identity as a roller skater, she picked up park skating again. In December of 2018, she opened a DIY spot with her friends, @theshredshedWI, so she could continue skating with her friends during Wisconsin’s brutal winters.
In January of 2019 Neon started @bipocwhoskate to empower Black, Indigenous, PoC skaters of all ages, abilities, skill levels, genders, and sexualities. The project was born out of frustration with how whitewashed “mainstream” roller skating culture was made to appear and has been used to raise donations for various non-profits over the past year and a half.
For Neon, the biggest joy in @bipocwhoskate has been meeting so many amazing skaters from all over the globe and hearing their stories. Community is really important to Neon and she hopes to continue to foster a culture where skaters help skaters. Alongside Olive, Neon hopes to set the type of culture changing positive examples with Radical Wheels she hopes to see for the community.
Put your money where your mouth is, be about it from day 1, listen to BIPOC folks, do better, and be better.