15yo Aiden And 17yo Wyatt Ride Kong
Our friend Aiden Parish stitched together this POV video of him and our oldest son Wyatt hitting Kong for the first time over the 2020 Thanksgiving break near Virgin, Utah. We owe Aiden a big thanks for sharing this video with us.
Follow Aiden on Instagram @aiden_parish83 and Wyatt @wat_is_good. Aiden and his brother Alex @alex_parish1 are the initial members of @parish_brothers_racing.
If you’re not familiar with Kong, it’s a line near the Red Bull Rampage site that many pros ride and advanced riders can test their mettle on. The trail is accessed via Flying Monkey and its notable features are a series of exposed ridge-to-ridge drops and rolls that leave zero room for big errors.
The boys were supposed to ride this with friends who were familiar with the trail, but following a hard crash by one of them earlier in the day, the ride was put off. Nonetheless, after Aiden’s dad offered to shuttle them up so they could check it out – it was go time.
For over a year, Aiden and Wyatt have been riding together because they’re members of the Racekraft Gravity Development MTB Team. They decided each of them had the ability to do this due to their experiences riding together. This being their first time down Kong, they took the time to inspect each feature, determine the lines, and only ride it if they knew they would succeed.
Aiden is 15 years old and rides a Santa Cruz v10 in this video. Wyatt is 17 years old and rides his Transition Sentinel. One of the more interesting details is that you can hear Aiden clipping in and out of his pedals. That’s just next level.
Wyatt said one of the toughest moves on the trail was on the first feature where the trail made a slight dodge to the right when you had speed after the initial slab. You can see that based on how the video is spliced up, both riders were sure be patient and stay on line when starting to roll in on a drop.
When they had the opportunity to ride the trail again the next day, they exhibited their smarts once again and decided to ride other lines nearby.
