The first thing you notice about Kevin Menard are his eyes. Blue, bright and flashing with each assertion. Next, you notice his hands. With sweeping gestures, his hands illustrate the emphatic passion driving his plans. And Kevin has plenty of plans.

Seven and a half years ago, Kevin wandered into the adjoining cubicle of his friend & work-mate, Kyle Young. Both were working in the tech department at T-mobile’s Bellevue offices. “Dude, we should start a bike company," said Kevin to Kyle (sweeping hands assumed.) “Can we just do that?’ responded Kyle to Kevin.

“We worked for three years at T-Mobile, building Transition before we ever wrote salaries into the business plan.” With this approach, they carved away a chink in the mountain bike market’s, corporate armor. They offer a product that had a grass-roots vibe, coupled with a custom uniqueness.

“Rider owned” is both a philosophy & a reality.

The sign-age adorning the show-room entrance at their Ferndale, WA headquarters shows both owners in the midst of death defying, “don’t try this at home kids,” style tricks.

Being authentic as a mountain bike manufacturer has paid both personal and professional dividends. It’s kept them progressive as a company, but also as riders.

All employees at the company HQ have “company goals” regarding their ability to relate to both their product and their customer. “Everyone’s gotta’ learn a new trick each month.” Says Kevin. This is said with a straight face and is delivered only moments before we round a corner, allowing us a view of the backside of the building. Greeting us are massive wooden ramps, dirt jumps, and deep curving bowls. A few employees (including co-owner Kyle) are balancing a morning full of computer work with wheel-barrels full of dirt work.
Kyle walks up to us, the satisfaction of hard work apparent upon his face. He claps his hands together, the mud crusted, leather gloves sending clumps of debris into the air. “Yuuuup. This is usually my favorite time of the day. Dirt time!” We laugh and Kevin responds by describing his latest trick. He Insists that he's almost there, he's just got to fully commit to extending his crossed leg all the way over his bike… as it flies through the air. We continue to laugh, though now more in that awkward, whimpering, kind of a way.

Let’s now take a moment and rewind the clock 13 years. It’s 1996 and Kevin quite possibly has a mullet. He lives in Seattle and is working with thirty other employees at Advanced Transportation Products, a company that hand-builds custom, recumbent bicycles. The bikes are boutique items. Their functional and aesthetic appeal is apparent. But, no one on a moderate wage can even think of affording the product. They’re a niche product, speaking to a niche clientele, at a very niche price. A scenario that’s either a win, win, win…. Or, more often, a lose, lose, lose. Either way, Kevin takes note.  

It’s now only 11 years ago and Kevin is newly married (if he had a mullet, it’s probably gone) He’s offered a job at T-Mobile that pays three times as much (“I like the bike industry and all, but, I got offered the job, thought of my new wife and was like, ‘Oooookay.’”) It’s a 44-mile roundtrip from Seattle to T-Mobile’s Bellevue offices. Kevin does this commute every, single day… always by bicycle… for 3 and a half years. We did the math. That’s roughly 40,000 miles. It’s these daily commutes that birth the beginning of Traitor Cycles.
Our story is still time traveling. It’s now 2008. Oil prices are skyrocketing & the cycling industry is assuming a very bright future. Kevin and Co. have traveled to Vegas for the cycling industry’s yearly, mega expo; Interbike. It’s here in Vegas that they officially unveil Traitor Cycles. The response is beyond all expectations.

Named after the feeling a cyclist often experiences when commuting by bicycle, Traitor speaks to consumers who are both ready and able to break from their automobile dependency. “I’d be on my bike, riding past traffic” says Kevin, “and I’d feel as if I was committing treason... as if I was a traitor.” Bear in mind, one man's traitor is another man's revolutionary.

As we walk through the warehouse, poking through boxes, we pull out purple crank-arms, white leather seats, lime-green frame-sets, handcuff shaped head-badges… Kevin chuckles while he remarks, “I’ve always thought, ‘Why do bikes have to be so boring?’”

This approach plays into both the aesthetic and the function of the Traitor products.

Disc brake equipped, steel-lugged, road-bike with a “fixie” option?  Check.

How about in a Pabst Blue Ribbon, themed paint job… with matching seat? Check… and check. 

In the show room we do a few final circles on the various bike models. I shake Kevin’s hand and ask if he has any parting advice for a world teaming with budding entrepreneurs. He offers, "In any industry, there's always the big fish. That fish ‘zigs’ one and like 3 other fish ‘zig’ just the same way. They do their best to mimic its movements... riding its current. When you begin a company, you're always a small fish. So, don’t zig. Zag. When you see them swimming one way, turn around and swim in other direction.”

“I shall zag,” said the Traitor.