THE STORY BEHIND K&C

THE STORY BEHIND Kids Cobras

Words Sam Wake

Every human being is on a transformational journey. Our lives are like chapter books. When we look back we can see them. There is the chapter when you were poor, the chapter when you were betrayed, the chapter you fell in love, and the chapter you felt like giving up. No two people are the same, but if we look back we discover that we share similar chapters.

Kids & Cobras was born on the heels of a dissapointing chapter in my life. I think the title of that specific chapter would be called BURNOUT. I was completely exhausted. My career path had failed by all traditional standards and I was left picking up the shattered pieces of my soul. I was a bit lost, and struggling to bury hatchets. If you have shared this chapter you know all to well how failure can cause you to spiral into an isolated whirlpool of identity crisis. My knee jerk reaction was to point fingers and blame others, but down deep I knew that the crucible of my pain was more about my growth as a person than recieving self-centered-justice from people. Though the ghosts of childhood wounds were visiting me, I was able to keep moving forward. I give a lot of credit to my wife Kelsey for that. Her support and bravery has been unparralleled. She is a yes person, always willing to jump into the frey of life and help. It was the first season of my life I was ready to stop dancing. I was depresed. It was in a rut, and getting out of a rut is hard.

Failure tests our wits. How we handle it determines what kind of people we will be.

One day my brother got home from delivering pizza and told me something that quite literally changed my life.

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I remember it really well because it caught me off guard. Somehow his statement helped me to see how I had stopped dreaming. The last thing I was thinking about was getting a motorcycle. I was to busy licking my wounds and singing my woes.

In my pessimism I said, “How? You don’t have a license.”

He responded, “Well I guess I will have to get one of those too.”

My brothers and I carry a small dose of competitiveness about us, so I wasn’t about to let him get a bike before me. PLUS this was the exact justification I needed to act on my early life crisis. It was time to buy a motorcycle.

Now, before I continue, it needs to be said that I don’t believe in buying stuff to feel good inside, unless we are splurging on chinese food. Ha! Consumerism is like a band-aid on a flesh wound of the soul. Neither motorcycles, or chinese food heal fractured hearts.

Meaning in life is drawn from a different source, a deeper source. It’s that small voice deep within your gut that tells us we are made for more.

A few months after that conversation with Matt, I was tearing through the winding back roads of Oregon in and around Portland.

If you ride, you know why the word “freedom” is assoicated with motorcycles. Few things feel better than cranking down an old highway in a perfect fitting tee with a powerful machine of Iron and rubber under you. I believe it was Todd Blaughbagh who said...

“The truth is, risk is what makes a bike worth riding. The borders of our mortality have always been an alluring road, and we have yet to build a better vehicle to explore them.”

The experience is nothing short of mystical. It is elemental, just open roads, iron, and air.

But I think the best part for me is all the time it gives me to think. It’s just me and my thoughts cruising through space and time at 70mph. The white noise of the experience is profoundly healing.

The second best part is the people. You won’t find more down to earth folks than those in the moto community. The problem though, is that it can be hard to find your way into a new tribe.

As a new rider, I noticed quickly how unapproachable the scene could be. I was scared to go to the local moto bars and cafes as an amateur rider. I kinda felt out of place though all my soul wanted was to affiliate with this inspirational culture.

I grew up a country boy. My folks owned a log cabin tucked away in the woods. We heated the entire place with a log stove my grandfather built out of scrap metal. The firewood came directly from trees we cut down. Year round our property was our little kingdom. We rode 4 wheelers and dirt bikes but somehow I missed out on riding road bikes. My mom lost her mom when she was 13 years old. My grandma was driving home from church when a drunk driver crossed the center line hitting her head on. Her death impacted my mom in ways I will always struggle to understand. Then later her dad almost died riding a motorcycle he laid over. So my mama has experienced what it’s like to lose someone you deeply care about on the road. With that said, road bikes weren’t in our rhythm as a family so Matt and I didn’t have anyone to welcome us into the family of two wheel riders.

Along the way, I came to realize that a large population of people were in the same saddle as us.

Thus Kids & Cobras was born...

I began to meet all kinds of people

who were new to riding and had never been on a group ride. I even met people who had been riding for 5 or more years who had never rode with others. So we started riding together, and before long a new inclusive family was formed.

As curvy roads formed friendships, I began to share my story. Some good friends held me up in a tough time and breathed on new dreams. With the help of a company called Urthrek we launched Kids and Cobras. Origianlly we were just planning to sell apparel but when my buddy Sean offered to sell me his coffee roasting equipment I took him up on it. Sean taught us to roast and we were off to the races.

Today we have grown to have a customer base of about 90 people with just over a dozen folks on our coffee club program. We have a couple wholesale accounts and are dreaming about how to grow this company.

Our goal is simple... We want to inspire you to live a life without regrets and leverage your influence for the marginalized.

You only get one life, so let’s not waste it living in fear.

There is more courage in your tank than danger ahead of you and we are committed to creating cool stuff that dusts off the ol’ imagination and gives you the excuse you need to get on a bike and chase down your future.

The backstory of Kids & Cobras is rooted in a thread of people taking care of each other. This thread has become a center piece to our companies ethos. We have learned that people get out of ruts when their friends and family help them get out of ruts. So we started a program called Coffee with Cause. We donate a dollar for every order and are currently working with Charity Water to end the global water crisis!

Thanks for reading! Enjoy that brew!

Grace & Peace, Sam Wake

RIDE FAST DRINK SLOW