Grant Robinson needs no introduction! Oh wait.. Yes, he probably does. Mostly because he does’t conform to the everyday so his talent is well wasted, lurking in the shadows of the sport. In fact, his passion for the sport, and I mean the real sport – the underground sport of mountain biking – is what made our paths cross in the first place.. Turns out Grant and Seb were on the hunt for some culture that was not your every day and I wasn’t keen on having my story told.. How does that work you ask!? Its pretty simple after hearing him explain..
Hey Grant ..Whats the deal??
Grant Robinson-
Why IKAM came to be?
How long do you have!?
The short answer is IKAM was born out of shear frustration and near hatred for the “industry” that has been built up around cycling, mountain biking especially.
Mtb is not cool, it’s not clever, it’s totally insular and that’s the most insulting part.
The marketing, advertising and magazine industry surrounding our sport in particular has become nothing less than a lazy-suzan of corporate fuckery whose sole intent is making
money by spinning a merry-go-round of hype covered in their own stinking turds.
The worst part about it all is that most of the people in these marketing, advertising and magazine positions will tell you themselves that it’s not what they see our sport to be yet
tumbling from their gobs is excuses about “paying the bills”.
Well why not for a second forget about your bills and just do what you want?
Most “riders” too are happy to stand there and let this shit hit them whilst watching “edits” on lousy websites that are all exactly the same and turning pages of magazines that
are all exactly the same.
Look at skating or ski/snowboard, at least they have the sense to make fun of themselves and they constantly contribute to other lifestyles (music, art, etc.)
as ways of expression and feeding their vibes…and here we are, the mtb world, thinking we’re cool when we are not even close.
Not even fucking close.
Seb and I often talked about how our lives are surrounded by some of the best and most genuine people we know because of bicycles, most are into all kinds of rad
stuff…..music, art, travel, fucking around, having a laugh, etc. but that’s not how our lifestyle is being portrayed.
So we decided to do it our way and try to bring a little of our lives to other people’s lives.
It took a while to figure out how but once we started the ball rolling it got real big, real fast.
As we say in the intro: …..biking might be the lens through which IKAM looks, but the subjects of inquiry will be broad, much like the lives of those we’ve met, spoken to and adventured with…..
The response has been far beyond what we expected.
Will we do another?
Who knows.
Probably not.
But maybe.
Long live IKAM.
Ron Penney-
The rest is history.. They shoved them down your throats during Crankworks.. No paper dispenser was safe from the anarchy.. And, whether you loved it or hated it, these mother fuckers got in your face.. And I wasn’t disappointed. So, for any of you that became a fan, here are a few more farm photos Grant took on the IKAM shoot “erry day farm liv’n”.. Spent with the only guy I could trust to write a few words about it (Dylan Sherrard).
