Once Rachelle got back to Long Island, where her family had only just moved, that board became her constant companion. She obsessed over it so much that he bought her a board with his own savings, just so she could join in. Rachelle got started while visiting her 13-year-old cousin in Canada on vacation, having nothing else to do but watch him skate. Nina scrolled down and clicked to leave a comment: “Thts fuckin sick ur better than me.” Searching for ‘girl skateboarders NYC’ on YouTube, only one meaningful hit came up: Rachelle Vinberg, a 12-year-old skater uploading practice clips – grinding rails, clearing stairs, falling on concrete – that made her look unflappable.
That’s when Nina realised she needed better company. One day a boy told her, “There’s basically no point in girls skateboarding because a woman is never going to be as good as a man.” All of a sudden, they were only too happy to become friends.īut as Nina got better than them, something changed. They refused to pay her any attention… until she nailed her first kickflip. So Nina just started skating by herself, studying those guys from a distance: seeing where they put their feet on the board, copying them until she got the hang of it. The first thing they said was: “Yo, that skateboard sucks!” One day, holding her first real skateboard – a pink one her dad bought her – she finally approached them. Instead she’d watch boys in her middle school practising every afternoon, dying to join in. When Nina Moran first got hooked on skateboarding, around the age of 12, she didn’t have any friends to pair up with. As a new film shares Skate Kitchen's story with the wider world, this supergroup is on a mission that feels much bigger than skateboarding.