This is a very special release for Knife and one that has been in the works for a very long time. Brendan was the first team rider for Knife, and without him and his contributions we would never have gotten Knife as we know it today.
I met Brendan by happenstance at a fingerboard event in Chicago in 2023. At the time he was making fingerboard decks under his own brand, Boxed Lunch, and I had a vision and a full plan for a fingerboard brand but lacked the time and space to produce the decks myself. When Brendan and I hit it off, we made a lot of progress together very quickly and continued making the decks together for about a year after. We outran Brendan's solo production capacity and eventually had to make adjustments, but that first year set the tone for the brand forever.
For a brief couple of months in 2023 we offered a 29mm shape. It was a part of our "OG Mold" lineup which had a longer wheelbase, deep concave, and steep, short kicks. Brendan loved that old 29 shape and the first year of filming videos in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Chicago featured the 29 deck exclusively. When we switched over to a new mold and new production flow a few months later, none of our team riders were using 29mm and so we decided it wasn't the right time to offer one for sale if we weren't using it ourselves.
So now, over three years later, we are very excited to re-introduce our original 29mm shape now as a pro model board for our original pro rider, Brendan Houston. The new shape, called the K01, is a refinement of the original Boxed Lunch shape. We've taken our favorite elements of the board design and adapted them for our current K26 mold. Over the last months we've tested dozens of minor refinements and iterations and have finally found a balance for a Knife 29mm deck.