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Words and photos by Morgan Taylor.
Swift Industries has been making bicycle bags by hand in Seattle for eight years now. The first four of those years were spent in Martina and Jason’s basement, laying the foundation for a company that to this day produces each of its products in-house. When orders kept coming in, and they needed to hire help, Swift Industries moved to the space you see here, in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood.
If you’ve been eyeing up an Ocean Air Cycles Docena rando bag, now is the time. The first pre-order of 2016 is live until Sunday, March 13th. Sewn in Seattle by Swift Industries, the Docena bridges the gap between a tall rando style front bag and a full sized porteur bag, with a ton of well thought out features.
Check out a few more photos below, and get the details at Ocean Air Cycles.
It doesn’t matter if you’re on the road for a week, or just riding around town, keeping your randonneur bag organized is important. Maybe that’s why I like the looks of the Hinterland Ozette rando bag from Swift. With those new cargo straps, everything stays in its right place.
Swift Industries continues to pursue their love of experiencing the outdoors by bicycle with the Hinterland Collection, a collection of in-house made bicycle portage. The centerpiece of the line is the Hinterland Ozette Rando Bag which experienced a big upgrade through utilizing XPac™ textiles in the classic French box-bag design. This material upgrade makes the Ozette Hinterland edition the lightest on the market. Also new to Swift is the Hinterland Jr. Ranger Panniers and a range of shirts and camping accessories.
See the full line below and at Swift Industries.
This looks like a great way to spend a Wednesday night in SF, brought to you by Swift Industries and Huckleberry Bicycles:
“Salsa Cycles takes you around the world with the launch of their new word touring bike, we’re excited to be one of the first to carry it but it’s a secret! You will just have to join us to see what all the fuss is about.
And Swift Industries cooks up amazing camp food to fuel the ride with taste testing, cooking demonstrations and different stove and food options. Moroccan food and drinks will be provided along with great music.”
Austin has a certain gravity. It attracts cyclists of all-wheel types and for Matt, he wasn’t drawn here for the road cycling or mountain biking. Matt began his experience with the bicycle on a BMX. He’s from Australia and Austin has always been the mecca for BMXing in the US. His friends here range from pros to companies like T-1, where he stays while in town.
Summer Solstice on the Swift Campout with Beat the Clock in Austin
Words by Gideon Tsang, photos by Gideon Tsang and Spencer Brown
On the morning of the Summer Solstice, Beat the Clock hosted a Swift Campout in honor of the longest day of the year. We awoke to the familiar cloud cover that has come with Texas’ rainiest year on record. Swampy barely beats the scorching summer sun but beggars can’t be choosers, eh?
13 of us rolled out from Sa-Ten Coffee and Eats onto the desolate roads of central Texas towards Bastrop State Park. The protagonist of the route is Old Sayers, a 10 mile gravel road filled with rolling hills and handsome oak trees. It always feels like we’re riding into a Terrence Malick film. If the storybook setting weren’t enough, we pulled over for a nature break at a tree swing. We swung with giggles and ‘Grams.
As we arrived in Bastrop early in the afternoon, the rain gods welcomed us by opening the heavens. The remainder of the evening was spent fashioning coyote scarves, camp coffee and of course, whiskey. If all days could be spent bike camping with friends, make them days longer!
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Some dirt, some coffee and summer solstice. The #SwiftCampout ride in Austin tomorrow is gonna be a blast. Check out some other rides happening across the globe at Swift Industries.
To commemorate the forthcoming Solstice weekend and the Swift Campout worldwide event, Swift Industries has released two special edition bags. Made in Seattle, the Swift Campout Paloma handlebar bag and Swift Campout Zeitgeist saddle bag are now in stock at Swift.
You don’t have to buy anything to take part in the Swift Campout weekend! Head over and see how you can sign up.
Swift Industries hopes to encourage all of you to organize a campout on Soltice weekend, June 20th and the 21st. Find out all the details and what you could win at Swift Industries!
Swift Industries’ offerings for the holiday season keep growing. Here’s the latest addition to their catalog: the Scout Cap, made by Pace Sportswear from a custom-printed fabric. I love the Stanley flask in the print!
Yesterday I went down to the LA River Camp Coffee meet-up to drink some coffee and see what this weekly gathering is all about. While I was there, I shot Errin’s Box Dog Pelican rando bike, set up with panniers.
This bike was made by Banjo Bicycles – they’re made by Winter now – in production runs and are sold by Box Dog Bikes in small batches. Errin’s has seen some mileage, which you can follow along on his blog Frontage Roads. I love randonneur bikes that become commuters when they’re not being drug through the shit on a brevet.
See more details in the Gallery and many thanks to Errin for organizing the LA River Camp Coffee meetups, more on that tomorrow!
I really love what Swift has been producing, especially these small run projects like the Bandito saddle / handlebar bag. It’s a simple solution to tote around random goodies like cameras, food, tubes, clothing, tools and apparently, burritos. Head on over to Swift to see more!
This is great! If you follow @SwiftIndustries on Instagram, you’ve already seen this bicycle medallion:
“Inspired by the Alpine Hikers’ tradition of decorating a walking stick with trail medallions, Swift brings you the adventure-seeker bicycle badge!”
See more at Swift.
Here’s another product from Swift Industries that caught my eye: the Scout’s Motto Tool Roll. Made in Seattle, Washington and retails for $37. See more information at Swift and a few more photos at the Swift Flickr.
One of my favorite small online shop owners that I’ve never met is Rob from Ocean Air Cycles. Recently, they collaborated with Swift Industries on a demi-porteur bag called the Docena. What is a demi-porteur bag? Read all about it at Ocean Air’s blog.
Done reading? Ok, to test the waters for full-on production, Ocean Air is running a pre-order on these bags. Personally, if I didn’t already have a kickin’ Swift bag, I’d be scooping one of these up. The details are incredibly well thought out and that multicam fabric is a no-brainer.
Head over to Ocean Air to check out the Docena Demi-Porteur Bag pre-order!
At the Melburn Roobaix yesterday (more to come on that), I bumped into my friend Ben Kamenjas from Sydney, who I met a few years back when he worked at Deus Ex Machina. Ben’s a wealth of cycling knowledge, especially the obscure / idiosyncratic world of French components and frames. At a certain point in your life, you tire of looking at others’ work and decide to start building for yourself.
What you see here is Ben’s first bike, under his moniker Cicli Spirito (no link yet). It’s a fendered porteur with a customized VO rack that mounts to the vintage center pull mounts and classic French parts with a classic geometry.
It’s always difficult to shoot a porteur with weight on the front, so I asked Ben to act as the kickstand while I snapped a few, very quick photos.
With this weather, I’m sure Ben was stoked on his Swift Industries Pelican bag, fenders and nice, plump tires during the Roobaix. That’s a great looking bicycle!
The AWOL blog has so much good content in it these days. Like these photos of Dylan and Erik’s Swift Ozette randonneur bag!