Motorgirl – by Elena Popina
Martina Milova loves to surprise people. Within one day, you can find her in an haute couture dress on a catwalk and in biker boots and a helmet, smiling to the camera and getting her hands dirty changing oil in her bike.
People, when they see a model, they have a whole set of perceptions what a model should be.
Sometimes they could think she’s not that smart or ditsy, or self-centered.
It’s fun to play this part.
[Wave hello guys – Martina laughs]
You surprise them. Ant it’s nice to see that expression of, ‘Oh wow, This girl can actually ride a bike be a biker.’ Takes a while to digest.
There is just something about the feeling of the bike. The engine, the strength and power of it, gives you respect. I knew there were bikers, but I didn’t know it was community that existed in such an extent. I feel very welcome in this community, I don’t feel they are tough at all.
When a man holds the door for me, it’s not a sign of weakness for me. Being on a bike doesn’t make me less feminine either. You are the same person, but you change in a way, but really you are the same person just exploring different parts of you, and they evolve.
Martina: Oh wow! This is so great.
New discovery, new you, or an additional you. Sometimes this might be tough because not all the people perceive you in this way. When they see you on a bike, they can never imagine you as a girly-girl wearing a flowery dress.
I can be more than one. I can be anything. It’s difference, you wither say, ‘I don’t have courage’, or “I don’t know that I have courage but I really have it,” and a bike brings it out.
I met Martina on a sunny Monday afternoon, when she came to a bike repair garage to learn how to fix her bike herself during a one-on-one workshop with a mechanic. Much later did I realize that Martina is also a model with 12 years of experience on the catwalk. On May 9, 2013, she represented designers from Slovakia, her homeland, during a Slovak Fashion Night in Manhattan.
Martina has a unique talent of being both elegant lady in a dress and a tough biker.
“We have many parts, we just don’t know that they exist,” she said.
“You don’t have to be one or the other, you can be both.”
Martina has been dreaming of owning a bike since childhood, but it was a year ago when her dream finally came true. As an adult, she moved from Slovakia to the USA, and she had to spend quite a bit establishing her life in a country before she could afford the luxury of owning a bike.
“Riding a bike changes you,” Martina said. It changes the way people perceive you; it empowers you and brings you confidence; it makes you discover the parts of your self you had never thought existed
