From being a total beginner, the road to riding motorcycles can literally take you anywhere
and no one is a better example of that than the awesome Olivia Bohac. After learning to ride in 2016, Olivia has been on quite a journey - from newbie rider and trying out trials at Camp VC to getting her full licence, joining a trials club, filming flat track race legends and even using riding motorcycles as part of her work now. We caught up with Olivia and asked her to tell us her story of how she came to riding motorcycles all the way through to riding motorcycles in feature films!!
OLIVIA BOHAC -
My motorcycle journey
In my final year at university, my boyfriend had already started talking about wanting to travel parts of the world on a motorbike and suggested doing it together. At that moment in time my perspective of motorbikes was only sports bikes, motocross, and Harleys. And everyone who rode a bike definitely fulfilled the ‘biker’ stereotype. Fast-forward one year and I was living and working in London. Through skateboarding I had met a group of friends and we skated together as Nefarious Crew. We happened to cross paths with VC at an event where my friend Vivi was exhibiting her photos of Nefarious and then I met Gemma, Namin, and Mai of VC at the end of the same summer at their workshop whilst Vivi was shooting photos there. A couple of months later Gemma invited me to have a go on her bike in the car park behind their workshop.
Fast forward a little while whist I went and did a ski season for a few months; as soon as I came back one of the first things I did was take my CBT. As I said at the start, my boyfriend had been planning to get a bike and had already done his CBT so I kind of went off his recommendations. He also told me the cheat code - that unlike a driving test taking my CBT on an automatic scooter wouldn’t limit me and I would still be able to ride a manual bike - changing gear and clutch control was just one less thing to think about so I went for the automatic option. To be honest I never had much desire to ride on the road so when VC hosted a dirt riding session at Docklands Riders in East London (which unfortunately doesn’t exist anymore) I booked in! It was was a great intro to off-road riding and Chris Salt who ran the riding school was great!
“Like all motorsports, off road riding isn’t a cheap hobby to have and I’ve always approached it with a logistical mind-set.”
The cost of owning a MX bike and then needing a van to transport it wasn’t a financial option for me at the time so I went back to Docklands to have more coaching sessions. That summer and knowing I had my CBT, I came to the conclusion that having A bike was better than having NO bike! So when I was at one of the VC moto meet-ups, I spoke to someone who was selling their 125cc, and then ended up buying it! I remember riding it home and feeling very underwhelmed as I’d been riding dirt bikes up until this point. I tried to be sensible and chose not to commute into central London on it that week because knowing myself, I’d probably try something dangerous. Lo and behold the irony of that thought process as I went to ride at Docklands again the following weekend: I ended up falling off and breaking my wrist (LOL). I was just being a bit impatient and clearly thinking I was better at riding than I was.
That summer was also the first time I went along to Camp VC. It’s funny looking back at that because even though I had a broken arm and couldn’t make the most of all the activities on offer, it was still a highlight of my summer! I’ve never been to an event where I felt relaxed enough to not constantly have eyes on my stuff or my friends. I met so many people who since then I now hang out with, ride bikes with, and have been introduced to other people through attending different events and sharing mutual friends. I quickly lost that stereotypical ‘biker’ perspective and realised how diverse people in motorbikes can be. That being said I’m under no illusions about wider moto culture, and this is only my own experience. There is still so much progress to be made for there to be access for other people who still don’t have it, for sure, but I think Camp VC is a good example of giving more womxn a good entry point to experience motorcycling.
I always wanted to try racing motocross and I was still spending hours on eBay looking for bikes, vans, insurance etc - but the reality of how much time I could really spend pursuing MX and what the payoff would be if I invested into that activity still wasn’t working out. I then volunteered at the Malle Mile event in 2017 and met a rider called Jay Young. I chatted with him about racing and he mentioned trials which is what he grew up doing. Again I had a naive opinion of trials in that what you see at the arena events where riders are climbing obstacles and spending most of their time on one wheel was the done thing. I may think I’m better than I am but even for me being able to ride like that was overambitious to say the least! But then the following year at Camp VC there was the opportunity do a trials training session with Inch Perfect Trials which I signed up for having had the seed planted in my head from The Mile. I really enjoyed it and it was a lot easier than what my imagination had previously led me to believe.
'“Trials actually felt quite similar to riding BMX which I did a bit when I was younger”.
At the time I had moved back to Sussex where I grew up and I had a trials club local to me so I began looking into where I could get a bike, what I would need in order to ride, and discovered that it was a lot cheaper than riding motocross: bikes cost less, don’t need as much fuel, smaller van costs less which means cheaper insurance. Suddenly off-road riding became more accessible to me from a financial and geographical stand-point. I also liked the idea of being able to showoff… skills still pending on that at the moment…
Eventually in 2019 I got my full bike licence. I’ve only recently sold my 125 and bought a bigger bike. Again, that was a logistical mind battle as I’ve moved back to London and back to weighing up the cost of the bike vs time actually riding the bike before even knowing where to store a bike. The reality being everyone needs a minimum of 3 bikes to fulfil all types of riding but I’m going to keep dreaming about that for now.
Having been riding bikes for nearly 5 years now, I’ve managed to meet a really great set of people. Originally it stemmed from VC but it’s introduced me to not just girls who ride, but guys who ride too, whether that’s partners, friends, etc.
“Not only have I stepped into a new hobby but I have ended up having opportunities I wouldn’t have had if I didn’t have a bike licence”.
I’ve also had the privilege of working on fashion campaigns, music videos, and most recently riding in huge feature film. I’m also shooting my own documentary film at the moment about a flat track racer which is something I would’ve never done without stepping into this world so I have a lot more going on than I did before thanks to bikes!
If there’s any take away from my life with bikes I would like it to be that stepping foot into this world has been a slow burn for me but I’ve enjoyed all of it. I’m extremely lucky to have friends who have let me ride their bikes when I haven’t had my own. Next step? I would love to become competitive at some point. For anyone thinking about trying out motorbikes I would recommend Camp VC as a great starting point. It brings other events like Days on the Dirt, Inch Perfect trials, the enduro school into one place in a relaxed environment to try things out. I’d also say, if you’re not being challenged enough then you are more than entitled to ask questions so ask your instructor to go further if you’re into it! It also gives you the opportunity to not enjoy it and walk away but hopefully find the discipline you love the most that you can then pursue after the event!