This is the bike that will love you back.
Its really nice to be noticed. Especially by folks you look up to. That happened last week, when we got a call from Patagonia asking us to display a couple of bikes in the store and featuring our commitment to 1% for the Planet.
We are, as many of our readers will already know, big fans of Patagonia and count them as one of our business heroes. But it is especially nice to get a little love from the gang at the Portland store as they are all such great folks as well as truly committed cyclists.
Many months ago, we found ourselves sitting in our accountant’s office feeling kind of nervous and humble. We build bikes. We don’t profess to be experts in accounting. (Which is a scary thing to admit.) When you are in situations like that the mind works overtime; I think we were half expecting him to say “Well, it looks like you owe the government a lot of money, and because you are a manufacturing operation you fall under a special category requiring you to work off any debt during the night shift at a nuclear power plant. I am required by state AND federal law to escort you to jail now.” I took Natalie’s hand in mine, and we sat patiently awaiting our verdict.
He looked over our documents slowly interpreting the numbers on the page trying to understand the story that they told, and after a long silence asked “What’s this two hundred bucks for marketing?” “Mostly website stuff,” I answered.
He took off his glasses and looked at us. “Can I offer you a free bit of advice?”
“Kids your age feel comfortable doing everything on the internet. But a lot of people my age need something to touch. You know, something to hold in their hands. You guys need to spend a little money and get some brochures or something.”
It was like the Zen Master had hit us on the head with a stick.
At that moment, we saw a glaring weakness in our kung fu fighting style, but didn’t quite know what to do with it. Something to hold and touch sounded right. But a brochure sounded boring. We had a solution in front of us, but just hadn’t discovered the problem yet.
Months later it hit us. We have a wait list.
The 8 or so months from placing an order to receiving your Sweetpea doesn’t have to be a desolate trek across the desert. It could be fun. Or at least interesting. We got to thinking about college admissions and those lonely months between the “You’re In!” letter and actually showing up for the first day of school. I remember anxiously awaiting any word, and devouring the mail as it came in reading and re-reading everything. Maybe we could do the same.
Around the same time we got a call from HP. There was a Top Secret Project, and they wanted us to be involved. The end result is the “What do you have to say?” campaign and the HP Small Business Community. And for us, it’s a way to develop ideas and make the process of buying a custom bike easier. Think of it as “What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Sweetpea.” Watch this space. More details to follow.
What do you call a bike that has the soul of a pickup truck? More than simply a commuter. Part time touring bike, part time road bike. Meant for gettin’ shit done, lugging around veggies, and havin’ a few beers with the girls on the weekends. We are calling it the Farmers Market.
This specific bike was also designed to handle bike moves, critical mass, and all manners of fun while living car free. The color was chosen to look even better with a few well-earned (inevitable) scuffs in the paint.
The Ahearne racks, won at the BTA’s Alice B. Toeclips silent auction, were custom fit to the bike. The bike, of course, custom fit to the woman.
So if things have seemed a little quiet around these parts, its because Natalie and I were on a little vacation. Of course, this means that the weeks leading up to the vacation were crazy busy, and that they actual vacation was just a different type of busy.
We spent the week in Duluth, Minnesota (a great town right on Lake Superior) and among other things ran Grandma’s Marathon, drank a shit-ton of coffee, a little bit of wine, and spent a good amount of time with all the Andersons, Olsons, Johnsons, and other Minnesotasons. Oh, and Natalie flew a plane.
The marathon was rough on everyone, and we were a good ways off our target times. I have been telling everyone that the bank foreclosed on the farm around mile 14. At least that’s what it felt like. But now that the race is behind us, we have a fantastic summer of Frisbee, cycling, barbecue, and tending to our new chickens. Nat’s going to pick up the Capoiera again, and I am going for a slot on the varsity yoga squad. We also have some sweet bikes coming back from paint, so stay tuned.
This month’s Sustainable Industries Journal has a nice little piece about the cycling industry featuring Breezer, Strawberry, Bikes Belong, and (blush) Sweetpea Bicycles. While they mentioned our recent announcement about joining 1%FTP, they also had some great stuff from a company that has sustainability infused in almost everything they do: Chris King.
(On newsstands now. Get yours today!)
The word “sustainable” seems to be losing some traction. Everyone’s got it: “Our nuclear power plant is made from Soy, so it’s both sustainable and good for your heart.” And when everyone’s got it, it is sometimes hard to see the ones who are really trying.
With the word being bantered around so much lately, I have to admit that I really admire the gang at Chris King. There is a lot that really sets them apart in the area of sustainability (all their materials and manufacturing is done domestically, they donate money to breast cancer research, and they have an innovative recycling program). But what I think is really cool is the fact that they make a fantastic product that you buy once and never have to replace. 90% of sustainability is right there.
But what really impresses me is that the same ethic applies to how they approach almost everything. It doesn’t matter if they are working with their raw materials, a new machine, their employees, or the community; they take great care of the resources they interact with. This isn’t just sustainability, it is deep sustainability. And its nice to know that we can find it not only on our bikes, but so close to home.
There are a lot of events that could qualify as “The Best Bike Event of the Year”. The Alice B. Toeclips awards ceremony, the Bike Craft Fair, S.S. Pussycat, Multnomah County Bike Fair, Pedalpalooza, anything featuring the Sprockettes.
But ranking way high on the list was last Friday’s Filmed by Bike Opening Night Throwdown. I wish I could convey the spirit of the event, but there really aren’t words to describe the kinetic mayhem that was Filmed by Bike. Just know that it rocked. Hard.
There were messenger movies, a movie featuring unicycles, and a couple of bike love stories. Natalie was lucky enough to be nominated to the esteemed jury, and was also in one of the films (a safety video/horror comedy). But I think our favorite was this fantastic movie out of Canada which is seriously worth the price of the DVD.
One of the hardest lessons to learn growing up is that when you make a mess, it’s your job to clean it up.
We spend years of our lives testing the boundaries of this rule: Just what kind of fury will Mom unleash if my room is mostly clean? What constitutes a “real” mess anyway? If a tree falls in the forest and it falls on my dirty laundry, is there a problem?
As we get older and become more responsible, we learn that if we spill the milk, we best clean it up. But we also learn the impact of other decisions: Don’t waste water. Drive less. Buy organic when you can. And lately, we have been looking at our larger footprint to realize that just because we own a business doesn’t exempt us from this rule: Steel tubing from Japan designed for smaller riders, sweet dropouts from down under, shipping bikes to Colorado for a high quality durable paint job. Our bikes are built with love in Portland, but they are sourced from all over the world.
And while we make the best decisions we can, there is an unavoidable environmental cost to building bikes. That is why today we would like to announce that Sweetpea Bicycles is joining 1% for the Planet. This means that we will donate 1% of each sale directly to environmental causes. 1% of each bike, t-shirt, parts kit, everything, will go directly to the people who fight for the health of our planet.
We believe that just because we build bikes and just because we are the tiniest little bike company, doesn’t get us off the hook. While this will be a humble contribution at the outset, we are approaching it as a mindfulness practice. By marking each bike with the 1% logo, we will be forced to ask ourselves if we have done our best to build clean. We also hope that the logo will remind our customers that every time they ride, they are shifting the balance, they are adding to the positive impact of the bike in the world. And that, after all, is why we build them.
Michael has been up to some interesting things.
A little while back, Natalie was asked (along with some other super sexy framebuilders) to be a wool model for Wend Magazine. Tony and Ira also answered the call, and it is now in magazine racks everywhere. Get yours today!
