Story time: The year is 2013 and I am halfway through design school. One weekend I agreed to go to a teacup reading with my mom (yeah, my family is into that witchy stuff). This lady goes on to predict my future by the way a few tea leaves coat the bottom of this cup. She says some outlandish things which seemed like hogwash at the time, but ended up being true…
The first was that I would be closing down @lavanapparel in a year. Not a chance. Sure enough… She was right.
After that she said I would create “one of the worlds best cycling knee pads”. Pffttt…. I’ve never designed protection before. This lady was out to lunch. Well, many years later, after working for a few different companies and having four or so knee pad designs get cancelled and never go to market, I decide to start @akta_mtb …
I’m not sure if this is the world’s best knee pad, but it’s by far our best selling product and cool to see it win awards and sell so well across this globe.
One thing she predicted that hasn’t come true yet is that I would meet a mentor who dressed in an abundance of thick, tight leather and that I would travel the world with this leather bound mentor. I still have high hopes to meet this leather daddy one day.
#coolstory
Boomshaklaka! @akta_mtb 2025 is live.
This one feels exceptionally well to get across the line. 2024 had more than its fair share of wtf’s —behind the scenes and personally. Toss in some shipping and production chaos to start off 2025 makes seeing it go live today a big reason to smile.
Big shoutout to the incredible humans who helped along the way. No chance I’d be managing all the highs and lows solo. You know who you are :)
BRB, time for some bike rides.
With just three days’ notice, I was off to Vietnam. Months of development work and prototyping were crammed into a few jam-packed days to rush approvals for production, which was set to start immediately.
I’ve worked with this vendor for almost ten years and finally got to meet many of the people I communicate with daily for the first time.
During this trip, I learned that @akta_mtb is the second smallest brand they produce for. I had a feeling the time and effort for my product might reflect that, but I was pleasantly surprised— the hospitality and the work that went into these few styles over such a short period were incredible.
Stoked how all of next year’s items are turning out.
Making shapes, or whatever that mtb saying is.
From a quick DM from @dylansherrard to a quick 48 hrs in Kamloops for an @akta_mtb shoot. Cool how things work out so easily sometimes.
