Perhaps you read our cycle tour adventures this summer as you travelled from Montreal to Brooklyn–we made it an exploration of the northeast’s local food systems. Well, we’re not the only ones! In the past week customers have from two separate sides of the states have agreed to let us post their photos, enjoy!
photo taken by Tammy Strobel, http://tammystrobel.com
photo taken by Mary Tremonte, http://www.justseeds.org/mary_tremonte/11penguins.html
This just in: Cole Bates, of 1 Less Car (one of the very first folx to put our name on his popular blog), just got in touch with us here at Swift to announce his new project: Bates Crates.
Since we have a working relationship with Cetma Cargo in Eugene, we thought it particularly fitting that we help spread the word about Cole’s elegant maple wood porter crates. With coffee cup holders built-in and plenty of space for other goods, this beautifully designed box hits the mark. Cole says that he thinks they’re a wonderful fit for your 5 rail Cetma rack, and are a versatile addition to most other porteur racks.
This morning I woke to some really wet weather and a six mile ride across town.
I haven’t gotten a chance to put fenders on for the season so I fished around in my closet for a must-have accessory: my Fabric Horse Spats.
If you haven’t heard of Fabric Horse yet, you’re in for a delightful introduction. Based out of Philly, the teensy company makes amazingly creative cycling accessories. Have a look on Carrie’s website and look at what she’s been up to.
The spats are beautifully stitched, and are heavy duty quality. I wear them in the rain to protect my feet and lower legs, and I wear them in fine weather just to look like a bad-ass. Put thick wool socks on underneath, or a pair of leg warmers, and pull ‘em over your cycling shoes! They’ll keep you warm and pretty dry–on top of real stylish.
(photo snagged from the website)
“…Perhaps it’s this long term and autonomous involvement that separates the camping cyclist from racers and around town bikers. A tour is a whole thing, a unit, and going about it day after day gives you a special sort of satisfaction. In effect, the tourist loads everything they need into a few cubic feet and leaves. As long as she is traveling and is more or less isolated from easy sources of assistance and so has to maintain herself, her machine, and all her gear. Tending to the business of the trip isn’t a matter of survival so much as it is of measured accomplishment. Although the rider isn’t always lost in the wilderness, the cyclist does make herself responsible for her small mobile world. It’s her strength that turns those miles…
I take my fleeing seriously. It’s a kind of Pooh and Bear adventure, vicarious, controlled, and good humored, but still I like going to see the country. I like being physically close to the place I’m traveling through. I really enjoy concentrating on my bike and gear, on camping techniques and food and rain, to the exclusion of less important matters. I like to run away even if I have to admit that pretty soon I’ll turn around and go back to work. It’s a little demanding and sort of trivial, and some people say it’s just a phase I am going through, and that I’ll soon have it out of my system. But I enjoy thinking about and practicing all the aspects of camping and cycling. I like the riding and the work and I like the problems that have to be solved so that things don’t go too wrong.”
–from Two Wheel Travel BICYCLE Camping and Touring, Reading for the confirmed bicycle fanatic, edited by Peter W. Tobey, and published in 1974.
This almanac inspired book measures 14.5″x10.5″ and it packed with tips, rants, raves and very outdated gear recommendations.
The first long page reads:
retreat gracefully
A collector’s item!
Have a look at a few tour photos from our trip! We’ve been home a week and I’m already feeling nostalgic. So beautiful.
Since our return life has really been lively here at Swift.Industries. We came home reinvigorated and delighted by the paths our small business has led us down.
Goods and I love to eat–which happens to be the second most valuable verb on cycle tour. The first being: pedal. My mind is whirling with the cultural ties which bind sustainable agriculture and cycle touring. Most obviously, in both fossil fuels are thrown to the wayside in efforts to reexamine the pace and quality of both mainstream transportation and agricultural methods. The two are linked by deeply seeded ideals which hope to nurture healthful communities–human and ecological alike. There are questions about society in greater terms: why do we have to produce so much? why do we need to go so fast? The culture we’re surrounded by does not encourage us to slow down and move with a sense of place, but when we do it’s amazing! When we do we see who’s migrating, what crops are in season, the history of a place and every mile of badly paved road. We feel the topography in our lungs and muscles, and ask for directions to start conversations.
Since our return home, I’ve revisited The Unsettling of America Culture and Agriculture, by Wendell Berry. The author inspired the agrarian movement, a land stewardship perspective on agriculture that was born in response to the dust bowl, and subsequently the dawn of fossil-fuel-based agriculture. He writes poetically and unapologetically.
We were visited by Russ Roca and Laura Crawford from the Path Less Pedaled. I have to thank them for coming through and asking such great questions. Since their visit I’ve been thinking a lot about the values we imbue our work with here at Swift. Having this company, small as it may be, is an opportunity to look at our ideologies and strive to walk our talk. Russ asked some really hard questions which I couldn’t answer immediately, but as Laura predicted, they have been haunting me for days. I love it. Good challenging philosophical questions to bite into, because we’re not just any old company aimed at franchising and measuring success by growth. We’re two people expressing how we want to participate in our surroundings economically and creatively. We get to choose to deliver packages by bike, we get to source our fabrics and goods from local suppliers, we get to put our bags in shops we admire because our ideals are aligned with the way they are navigating as a business.Keep your ear tuned for the full interview. While you’re on their site, have a look around, they were really inspiring folks (with good taste in beer).
Also received a check from a customer with a few really beautiful stickers enclosed from Just Seeds, the visual resistance artist cooperative. And one of the folks at Dream Cycle in Vancouver wrote: You made the most awesome panniers ever. holy smokes. I can’t believe your level of craftsmanship! They are beautiful. I had them in the shop for a while and they got tons, and tons and tons of questions. We’ve given away a bunch of brochures so hopefully you get some business coming your way. Thanks guys! Geez, when we started a pannier business I didn’t think we’d get fan mail, it makes me blush. It’s really exciting to get lines like those.
I was just startling by a hissing sound from the front of the house. Third flat in two weeks. Damn. Well, if I’m riding early tomorrow I should go fix that.
Thanks for reading,
Martina
At 20/20Cycle there’s a little posting about a bike shack right next to the work bench. curiosity won. Four of us made reservations to cycle north to Mukulteo and ferry over to Whidbey for a night away from the city. Here’s what we found (we think you’d like it too):
Jay and Kathlene, the owners, are wonderful folks and totally excited about their mini tourism project. Both are avid cyclists and Kathlene was away at UBI learning the tricks of the trade while we were visiting.
The shack is nestled in deciduous forest and surrounded by salmon berries. It’s a one room hobbit house with a wood burning stove and queen bed. Outside is a little kitchen platform and fire ring. The compost toilet looks out on the forest.
From the shack you can head out to cycle the island. Whidbey is surprisingly big: ditch your panniers and take a half century through farmland and along the water.
At $25.00 a night it’s an unbeatable adventure from Seattle. Email Jay and Kathleen at shack@bikeshack.com for more information
If you’re not on bike don’t bother contacting them!
“The editors of Boneshaker believe that the bicycle, when conceived of and used appropriately, can become a tool for social change and community building. And though bicycling has become, for better or worse, an activity tied to radical undertones and bohemian implications, we are less interested in those types of categorizations and more so with simply riding bicycles to get where we are going.”
This past weekend, Goods and I had the wonderful opportunity to meet two of the makers of the Boneshaker a bicycling almanac over coffee. We had been invited to tell the Swift.Industries story for a future issue of this pocket-sized ode to bicycling. Foremost, it is so inspiring to meet the entrepreneurs within this vast bicycling culture, and both Evan and Michael bring exciting energy to an already vibrant scene. Further, we here at Swift are pleased to have been invited along in their literary journey and are delighted to be represented within this lovely publication!
So you think this seamstress is just some home-body crafter huh? Well, I have a past too, and yes, it involved the most brutal bicycle gang in Prescott, Arizona. Don’t believe me? Just ask local residents about the catastrophic havoc Corvus corax wrought upon that small desert town. Parents were afraid to let their children out at night, cowboys turned a cold shoulder when we’d ride into town. Mid-night meets on the top level of the parking garage sent chills down the security guard’s spine and he’d ride that little golf cart right out of that building quaking in his rent-a-uniform.
Why did we do it? For a love of steel tubing. To honor the lords of Metal. To clash against the forces of petroleum guzzling demons lurking in the shadows of the world.
I gave up that life and cleaned up, gave myself a job and quit my Rhapsody addiction. Until three nights ago there was a knock on the door. I put down my gardening book and put my glasses on. In true Hayduke fashion there stood Lihatsh, a member of the Corvus Corax contingent. He came up from Tucson, Arizona on the winds of havoc. He has a mission: he’s pedaling his book………..
Goods and I just spent a weekend in Portland. We came south to get out of the stitching studio, away from home projects and doing laundry, and to catch some of the Filmed By Bike ‘09 festivities. Saturday’s goal was to check out some bike shops around town, but we didn’t have more of a plan than that. We had our good friend Ellie with us, another mechanic and dedicated bicycle enthusiast. In our friendship three things are liable to influence our days: coffee/bicycles/food(+beer). We figured on a weekend of promenading Portland in quest of inspiring projects and delicious treats. The over-arching attraction to all three themes is a mutual love for worker-owned projects and anarchist/collective organizing. Count on Portland to serve us food, coffee, and bikes that fit the profile.
Our first stop was the City Bikes repair shop followed by a duck into their retail space. The shop is a worker-owned collective that’s been around since 1990, and serves Portland with really good prices and a nice variety of parts and goods. Every mechanic we chatted with was really supportive of our project and gave us advice about other bike shops to visit. I was also really happy to see female mechanics in both of the City Bikes’ spaces, this industry tends toward a guy-heavy staff and as a lady it’s really refreshing to encounter women with wrenches in their hands.
Recently, I was locked out of my house in my pajamas and I went around the corner to 20/20 cycle here in Seattle. While I was waiting to be rescued, Dan from Portland DesignWorks came in to show off some of the tools and accessories he and his partner have been working on in Portland. Looking around, he made a comment that summed up various bicycle spaces: you either walk into a ‘bike shop’ or a ‘bike store.’ It’s something about the care and aesthetic put into a shop–it’s the difference between a chain and a mom and pop, it’s about conformity or celebrating artistic touch. The trip to Portland made me think a lot about how we express ourselves in these bicycle scenes: both in the look of our businesses and products, but also regarding the structure and decision-making choices we make. There’s culture in these spaces. Goods and I get to use Swift.Industries as a catalyst towards our visions of culture, and we meet people involved in really inspiring bicycle-related projects that reflect our own ideologies and speak to our sense of form and design. We make zines to advertise and hand-draw every single flyer, we work by word of mouth and stop into a shop ourselves to make a connection with the workers and owners–the projects we found in Portland reaffirmed and re-inspired our choices.
After City Bikes we got caught in the jumble of water-front industrial roads trying to find the route up Industrial Way towards North Portland. The first weekend of warm weather in the Northwest had us giddy and riding slowly. We pedaled the wrong direction across the Burnside Bridge, saw a portal to the trail we wanted on the other side of the bridge, cursed! and in a cloud of tourist confusion ended up dabbling about town and heading towards northeast Portland on the most unpredictable route. It was delightful! Finally we came to North Portland Bike Works. I’d say this shop is testament to how much one can do with a wee bit of space! Here’s what they say about themselves:
North Portland BikeWorks is a collectively run non-profit neighborhood learning center that provides information, resources and skill-sharing programs to low-income and marginalized populations to advocate the use of environmentally sustainable, self-reliant transportation.
In the corner, a zine titled URBAN ADVENTURE LEAGUE caught my eye. Written and illustrated by Shawn Granton, this little book of historical tours and maps is a fucking gemstone! check out more on the website –and don’t forget to have a look at Shawn’s amazing art site. Ellie, who worked at Bicas in Tucson, Az. for a long time said that Shawn stops in at least yearly just to hang out and see what’s new.
Onward! While in the general area we headed out to the Bike Farm. Ellie and Goods are both involved here in Seattle in the Bikery, and have been working on educational collective shop projects for many years (Bicas and Helping Understand Bicycles–respectively). We met a crew of fellows at Bike Farm, and had a chance to speak most with a gentleman named James. The shop has a really nice feel to it, is totally volunteer run, and works solely on a donation basis. They use a membership model to ask for what parallels a community subsidy (not too different from farm based Community Supported Agriculture ideas): “Membership entitles you to full use of shop space and a professional set of tools with the assistance of a mechanic DURING OPEN HOURS. Membership also entitles you to some free workshops.”
Drop-in rate: $5.00 per hour (no membership required)
Month Membership: $20.00
Six month Membership: $35.00
Year Membership: $60.00
Members are also entitled to a 20% discount on new parts.
Since we were headed south again to catch the film festival James directed us to Clever Cycles. We were especially interested because the rumor was that a Cetma Cargo bike was at the store. Let’s note for a moment that the aesthetic spoken of previously is unrefined and gritty, do it yourself at it’s heart (not the new glossy blog DIY). When we rolled up in front of Clever Cycles, Ellie and I immediately passed judgement. This looked clean and hoity toity. We walked into the bicycle show- room first and were met by a beautiful selection of dutch bikes: mostly cargo inspired, and classically crafted. Aside from steel, touches of leather craft and wood detailing dappled the room. It kinda made us drool. We watched one of the owners show customers how to assemble and disassemble a folding bike in about three minutes flat. In the accessories and apparel room we found only high quality and beautiful products. Martina, one of the co-owners, has been working with a Seattle-based garment stitcher to design lady’s clothing suited for cycling. We are not talking about spandex! Ellie and I gawked at the darling dresses with discreet back pockets, and fabric inserts for easy pedaling. Hand sewn and Northwest made. As we got ready to get back on our bikes Ellie admitted that she was hesitant when she arrived and inspired when she left Clever Cycles. The shop is undeniably out of our league, but also represented the kind of commerce and quality of craft that we respect. Finely done!
On Sunday morning we made it to A Better Cycle. Now I can’t get that shop out of my mind–I’d say that shop was the pinnacle of my weekend. One rides up to an open garage door with long curtains draped to frame the entrance of the space. The shop is crammed tastefully with parts and bicycles (from what I saw all used bicis). Black Star Bags are represented, and hand-crafted bicycle accessories made by A Red Bee (also a co-owner) are all over the place. There’s a back room that’s bout to be dedicated solely to used parts, and the counter is lined with zines, pins, spoke cards and more. When I think of the shop that I’ll open one day it’ll be a fusion of A Better Cycle and Firehouse Bikes in Philly. ABC is as old as Swift, I think it started in 2007. Six kids co-own the project and work the shop. If in PDX you gotta stop in a say hello. The two I met were really friendly and the shop surely won my heart.
