../people/Thomas Göring

Sources: www.spokesmen.no, Thomas Göring november 2003, ...
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1971 DOB: 12 mai 1971.
I'm born in Karlsruhe, Germany.
early years I think I start already since I was 5 years old to jump a bit but of course with a normal kid bike. Later my friends and I built some special Highriser bikes together because they were more a kind of a motocross bikes. At 10 years old, I bought my first bmx bike (for around 100€). When I was 11, I started to race for 7 years. But at this time I was already riding flatland. Then at 17-18 I started competing the first time in Freestyle (Flatland). All the big and good contests were yet in Cologne (same place like as the Worlds from the last years). Stefan Prantl was organizing these contests with the help from the Jugendpark and many other peoples. I think this contests were really important to bring all the riders in Germany together and push in a really positive way the bmx-freestyle sport. Big thanks to Stefan and all the other helping peoples!
13 years old. Back saddle in KHE home town (Karlsruhe). On my Redline PL20 with Stu Thomsen bar, ZAP Pads and Haro Elbow pads.


Circa 1986. I was "Number 8" in Germany (Race). Race was really big this time and my age class was over 120 riders!
1987 16 years old. On my SE doing a Miami Hopper.
1988 The first big contest I entered was the one in Cologne, I think it was 1988.

The KHE factory was founded in 1988 by Thomas and Wolfgang Goring.
Wolfgang (my brother) and I started KHE in 1988. The main reason was that I bought a pair of Tioga pegs which I destroyed after I screw them on. I was learning precision mechanic and I was thinking I could do better. My brother Wolfgang earned his first money with the job he started and we bought together for 750DM (360€) a small (hey really small) turning tool machine. At this time I was doing each peg by myself from a big alloy rod. That means each peg had a different length. I sold the pegs on contests and a dealer called "Rabbit BMX" (Wolfgang Fritscher) got angry that I sold them direct to the riders. He placed his first order that was around 50 pair... oh man this was a lot of work at home. A short time later Wolfgang and me decided to ask a German CNC maker to produce them for us because the orders were becoming bigger and bigger and many dealers followed. Any money we made was invested in more and more products. When you don't have rich parents or you don't like to use much money from the bank then it takes a long time to build something up. Today (2003) we sell KHE products in over 20 countries and 14 people works in our company. We're assembling every bike we're selling in Europe in our company. We also build bikes for Wheeler, Diamondback, Intersport and many other companies. Each day we build around 150-170 bikes.
1989
1990 4th place 17/18 experts flat @ 1990 worlds, Trier, RFA, august 1990.
The first Worlds I entered were the ones in 1990 in Trier and this was also my best one I can remember. I placed 4th behind Michael Steingräber, Armin Batoumeni & Christoph Huber (who built up MUTATION Clothing). Oh this was a really good and funny time.
I then travelled around with Albert Retey, Christian Wendland, Kisten Maier & Jerome Fuchs to a lot of contests. I think that since 1991 until 2000, we entered nearly each worlds.

Kenn august 1990. Photo: Trond Husø/Spokesmen
1991
1992 1992 KHE Catalog with Thomas on the cover.
2001 I entered my last competition. I still try to ride as much I can but it's not so easy because of the company and all the bike shows around the world.
2001 in Munich on a alloy KHE Easy Rider.
2003 I really like to say thanks to everybody who helped us in the past and today and a big thanks to my parents!