The Wheels Issue is now out! In it, we interviewed five incredible women who each use a different set of wheels in their everyday lives. Over the next few weeks, we'll be sharing their portraits and stories. First up is Stefanie Mainey, who competes on rollerskates. 

You can buy Issue 26 here or subscribe to Oh Comely here. 

Stefanie Mainey is a full-time roller derby coach, number thirteen in the London Rollergirls A-team, London Brawling, and the captain of Team England. Roller derby is a violent speed-skating sport with a female-dominated elite, and I would have missed the chance to speak to Stefanie entirely were it not for her resolve to train at every opportunity possible. She had just returned from a coaching job in Vienna and was about to set off for San Francisco, but squeezed in a training session at her community hall between the two, and it was here that we met.

Why did you get into roller derby? I saw it on the TV about nine years ago, looked it up and found the London Rollergirls. I went to a skate shop in London and I bought all my equipment, including some skates that cost about fifty pounds.

That’s cheap, right? Yes! I went along to my first session shortly after and really, really enjoyed it. I’m still doing it eight years later.

I read an interview with you when you’d been doing it about five years and you said, “Oh, maybe two, three years tops because of my knees.” But you’re still here! I have some extremely good-quality knee pads! Five years ago I wasn’t doing any exercise outside of roller derby and that was considered enough then. Now I go to the gym about four or five times a week, I strengthen all the ligaments and muscles around my knees, I do a lot of holistic stuff, stay away from refined foods and I take a lot of vitamins. Basically I do lots of boring things to try and give me the longevity to keep playing the game.

Is it as aggressive as it looks? Yes. You have to think about it like boxing: you don’t go out with flailing limbs to completely kill someone. You have to be controlled and considerate, and you have to protect yourself. But if I am playing a game against a top-tiered team, I am going in to hurt them, I’m going in to make them think twice about blocking me again. I have to be conservative with how I play, but I’m definitely going in to hit people as hard as I can.

I’m trying to reconcile this with what I’ve heard about everyone being so supportive and sisterly. The people that I’m trying to make sure never block me again are also some of my best friends. They’re jammers, I’m a blocker. They’re going to try and throw me off my skates and I’m going to try and get them on the ground, or slow them down. And they’re still my best friends.

Why roller derby in particular? I’ve answered this question before, and the answer seems so lame, but it’s that I’m just really good at it. I’m good at it and I enjoy it.

That’s not a lame answer at all. “Because I can and I want to!” Given the battering you go through, though, what is so addictive about it? I really enjoy that the sport is always evolving and I feel like I’m part of that evolution. I am coaching brand new concepts and material all the time and I spend an awful lot of time thinking about those elements. That’s what I enjoy, having the time and space to think of how I want to do something, rather than having someone else teach me how to do it. It’s by the skater, for the skater. We own the game and we fiercely protect it.