Cara-Beth Burnside: “Something Else”

Skateboarding, and its chillier counterpart snowboarding, have an “outlaw” aura to them that cuts both ways. Oh sure, it’s great to be a rebel … for a while. Mainstream society indulges the boarders, lets them have their fun for a while until it’s time to grow up. Is Ross Rebagliati, Olympic snowboarding gold medalist and “long-standing member of British Columbia’s legendary cannabis community” (so says Cannabis Culture Magazine, not that they’re biased) typical of the species? There are a few boarders, however, who grow up to be better boarders. Not many, especially on the skateboard side. Concrete takes its toll. Years of slams ‘n jams tend to weed (sorry) out the crowd in what has always been a highly competitive yet poorly paid field. Who would have guessed that the last man standing would be … a woman.

Her name is Cara-Beth Burnside. Born in ‘68, first aboard a board in ‘78, finished just out of the snowboard medals at Nagano in ‘98. “CB” has been competing since 1991 and her accomplishments on skateboard and snowboard are legendary. That’s right, skate and snow. Living in Encinitas, California, first-class facilities for both sports are within a few hours drive.

“It’s hard to explain how amazing it is that she stays on top in two sports,” says 1998 Olympic Bronze medalist snowboarder Shannon Dunn. “Nobody else out there, guy or girl, has Cara-Beth’s energy.”

It’s that energy and a renowned work ethic that has kept Burnside at the top of her games. She’s been known to work on a single move for hours, driven by the pursuit of perfection. “You try, and you try, and you try for so long,” she says, “and then one day you get it. You landed it. You’re so high. So high.”

“It’s lonely at the top,” is a very old cliché but its appropriate here. In the male-dominated skateboard world, Burnside is in several classes of her own. Tony Hawk retired at thirty-one but CB seems as unstoppable as the Energizer Bunny. Numerous broken bones and five concussions have neither slowed her down, nor dulled her intensity. From her perch up on high, Cara-Beth can look back with pride on her emerging legacy. She’s always made it her practice to encourage the younger girls and never misses an opportunity to promote her sports, especially skateboarding.

In a firm yet low-key manner, she has pushed event sponsors to recognize and reward the resurgence in women’s skateboarding. About 40 percent of pro snowboarders are female but the percentage drops to 10 percent when it comes to skateboarding. Vans brought out the first women’s skateboard shoe after she “suggested” they do for the girls what they’d already done for the guys. “She just packed all her pictures up one day and marched over to Vans to talk to the president,” recalls Mary-Love Burnside, Cara-Beth’s mother, with a laugh. “And she got her shoe.” The “CB” skate shoe features Burnside’s sunburst tattoo on the heel (her actual tat is on her wrist). The CB2, CB3, and CB4 followed and have sold well.

Does Burnside worry that catering to the mainstream and the mass market will dull the edge that makes both types of boarding so appealing? Cara-Beth shrugs off the “athlete” label and all that goes with it. “We’re not so heavy,” she explains. “We’re, I dunno how to say it … something else.”