A Relentless Devotion to the CAuse inside Zeal Distribution
Words and Photography by steve BAnCRoFt The BMX industry in the UK is a funny place, for the most part it’s fairly generic – brands and distros following tried and tested models to proven ends – and generally a company’s success can be measured by how efficient they are at toeing that line. But behind this seemingly simple façade of shiny new products and flashy new web edits, lie countless hours of hard graft and a degree of passion and dedication that would put an Russian Olympic gymnast to shame.
bile phone and a room full of boxes. Every night when he finished work, with his eyes squared from staring too long at inventory spreadsheets and courier’s websites, he had to shuffle around between the piles of products and move the boxes off his bed and stack them on his desk. six hours later he’d get up and move them back again. To say that James ‘lives’ BMX is an understatement worthy of a slap. If you cut him, this guy would bleed 4130.
The majority of you reading this, as consumers of BMX media, will only get to see the good bits. You only get shown the big tricks, the big names and the all-smiling cast of the road trip edit. But behind the outward face of the advertising and promotion lies a reality that is far less glamorous.
We went up to Upton in Pontefract to catch up with one of the industry’s most favourite faces and see how the Zeal empire has been getting on since it moved away from the high rents of London to a new spacious location up north.
For six years, Zeal’s owner James Hitchcox ran his distribution empire from his bedroom. He had a laptop, a mo-
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Zeal are the underdogs in UK BMX distribution. They have a modest stable of small to medium sized brands and are far removed from the big bucks of corporate affiliations afford-
A Relentless Devotion To The Cause