There’s never a good time to talk about yourself. Not even when your 6-Guinness-deep or on the Shrink’s couch.
At Kingdom Bike Project, it’s a pretty unique set up. We’re bike junkies and riders of all sorts, with eye’s-to-heaven ‘different personalities’, creative scarf wearing bike-architects, hard working jokers, to the quiet get-it-done crew. We all hail from schools of varied backgrounds & experiences, and from different spots all over the world. There are lots of common threads that tie us all together for the love of what we do. But I don’t want to pigeon hole that to just cycling or riding a bike. Yes we ride and obsess over bikes – constantly. We challenge ourselves, our thinking, each others thinking and what we want from ourselves, all.the.fucking.time. But there is more that drives us.
There’s an open honesty amongst us – where no one is safe, nor are their ideas or thinking direction. And it flips on a very bright light in the room, that shows us just how lucky we are. As a collective. As friends. As riders. As thinkers. As creators.
Collectively, we’ve had some of the greatest adventures and experiences in Life together – that’s woven the very fabric of Kingdom Bike Project. We’ve tested our metal. From the simple burnished type upon which we sit, to the veins of it that runs through our personalities, even right down to the pins attaching our bones together. We’ve been on the wire; on that edge of the oh-fuck-just-keep-going, to the times where we’ve picked each other up, dusted ourselves off and given that nervous eye-twitch that wordlessly says’ let’s not talk about that one… And all those experiences have seamlessly bled into each and every project.
But this isn’t something new. We are all aware of that omerta between us that comes from hours, days, weeks spent side by side – YOU know what I’m talking about. You have been there. It comes from Time in the mountains. Time spent in the same pain-bath where the only thing you want to do is pull the fucking plug – but you knew your brother beside you wouldn’t let you. It comes from the places that made you Question and Doubt, and somehow you just keep going. You can spot your rider miles away. You know the roll of his shoulders, the head-bob or the way he moves. And that’s a big part of the Why and What about Kingdom.
There’s an incredible feature from the infamous Mark Twight that speaks to the very core of what it has taken Kingdom to get here, to where we are today. The way he speaks about his old climbing partner, is not only what I’d like someone to say at my funeral – but it tells so simply all the history of what makes them who they are as men. And it’s the simplicity and core message that we live and breathe by.
Just keep it simple…
‘Eat when you are hungry, sleep when you are tired. Climb when necessary.’
The Kingdom Bike Project.
