Chris King’s story could well be a testimonial for a motivational speaker, at the very least provide inspiration to anyone considering the pursuit of dreams. Chris was just twenty years old when he left a potentially lucrative, but safe (read: boring), career to form King Cycle Group and manufacture his now famous sealed bearing headsets.

It’s not just his spirit of enterprise that provided the impulse to create a headset from aluminum scraps and discarded medical instrument bearings. Chris has a series of ideals and standards that he applies to his engineering as well as his business. His dedication to reliability and structural integrity has been instrumental, in no small way, in making cycling more fun.

Andy Waterman, deputy editor of Privateer Magazine, a well-printed and presented UK-based magazine that exists for those who live and breathe mountain biking, recently dropped by Chris King Precision Components, located in Portland OR, where he had the opportunity to photograph Chris’s personal Yeti A.R.C. He rode his Yeti regularly from 1993 to 2008 when he took it on a coffee tour of Brazil. Perhaps he was sourcing a new bean for Chris King Espresso (he also makes a fine tamper).

Adam Leddin writes the bike-obsessed Cycle Exif in Australia.