Blog

BikecraftPDX THIS WEEKEND

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 19:05:19 +0000

Hello Faithful followers!

Come visit us at Bikecraft PDX this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, 11-6 both days, at Sandbox Studios. It's a really cool space, featuring really cool local hand crafted gift items. Don't go to the mall-support locals craftspeople and rub elbows with other cool folks! Stop by our table and say hi!

Hope to see you then!

Joan, Troy and Claire

The Philosophy Bags family

New Beginnings from Lovely Bicycle

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 18:49:56 +0000

Friday, June 8, 2012

New Beginnings

Earlier this week I finally made it to 12 Channel Street in South Boston - the new home of Royal H. Cycles, Geekhouse Bikes, Hubway Bikeshare and a number of other local bicycle-related ventures.

Organised by the intrepid Marty Walsh of Geekhouse, HQ Boston is a new collective space in an industrial waterfront area dubbed the "Innovation District," and its acquisition has been the talk of the town among bikey people. It is big news. The space is big (24,000 sq ft), the commitment is big (10 year lease), and the scope of the project is big. The move shows there is growth in the local small scale bicycle industry, and implies a collective faith in this growth continuing.

Seeing the venue for the first time - an entire second floor of a warehouse-type building, still mostly open floor space - I was overwhelmed by the sheer blank canvas potential of it. Anything could happen here. Many things will, soon.

All morning long there was energy, movement. Planks scattered, walls going up. Men at work. At the same time it was oddly peaceful for a place with so much going on. The size of the space diffuses the construction noise. The light coming in from the outside casts a soft white glow over the debris.

The floor space occupied by Geekhouse and Royal H has been set up and operational for months. There are beautiful machines, jigs, tools, frames and wheels suspended along the walls.

The presence of the framebuilders is there.

Oh yes.

Walking through the space, I admit to feeling some nostalgia. The new venue lacks the personality of the old Geekhouse shack in Allston with its famous graffiti mural. It lacks the charm of the tiny old Royal H workshop in Somerville by the railroad tracks, just minutes from my house. There is no small neighbourhood feel here. Huge industrial buildings greeted me as I looked out the window, blocking the view of the Harbor. But even as I thought these things, I knew that it was the sentimentalist in me talking. Any place can become a neighbourhood once filled with neighbours, and the Innovation District is attracting new creative small businesses every day. Murals will be painted in due course. The personality of a space takes time to develop.

This place has the potential for growth and collaboration that was not available to either of the occupants beforehand, and the excitement of this is almost tangible.

The spirit of working together is in the air. Though I came to meet with Bryan of Royal H., I later encountered Shane - the man behind BostonBiker. I've corresponded with Shane in the past and I thought that we'd met before, but obviously we haven't because this was a totally different person. It took me a bit just to wrap my head around that and readjust my mental image of him, but soon we were giddy with talk of joint projects involving Shane's skillz and mine.

But back to the main purpose of my visit: I am working on a new mixte prototype with Royal H. Cycles. I sold the mixte Bryan made for me in 2009 to finance this, and although this was difficult I don't regret it. The new collaboration will be my design and Bryan's framebuilding. If the prototype works out and is cost-effective, the idea is that it would become a model available to order. I am not thinking of this as my personal bike and not getting attached to it. Very possibly I will sell the prototype, particularly if we end up having to make another. There is so much to say about what I hope this bicycle will be, but in these early stages I am too nervous and excited to talk about it too much. As far as form, I can say that it will be a low-trail 650B mixte with curved twin lateral stays. Fully lugged, with lots of modified lugwork. As far as function, my hope is to make a bike that will be suitable for both urban and long-distance transportation, including over hilly terrain, optimised for women who ride in their everyday clothing. There are lots of details regarding what this involves in my mind and why, and I look forward to sharing them.

In the meantime, it looks like I will be paying these gentlemen more visits over the summer, which is certainly not a bad thing. It will be wonderful to watch HQ Boston develop. If anyone local is interested in joining, there is space available and rent is cheap. Things are happening in Boston. Here's to new beginnings.

A Request for a do over

Thu, 31 May 2012 18:16:11 +0000

I know, I know, we should be in touch more.

By starting a Twitter account and a Facebook page for you to “like”, and offering an RSS feed and newsletter to sign up for on our site, you had every right to assume there would be some sharing of information occurring on our end. Believe me; that was our intent-we were going to jump right on it, and, once started, we were going to keep the blogs and newsletters coming. Each one exciting and dynamic; jam packed with stuff you couldn’t wait to click open and read, and then felt compelled to pass on to everyone you knew…and then there’s our reality. Please forgive us, we are old and overwhelmed, undermanned and overscheduled. I know, I know, excuses, excuses. Let’s put that poor performance behind us and start fresh-we want to change, we want to be different. We want to be the brand you want us to be ;)

I pledge to you to post at least one blog a week, and my goal is a quarterly newsletter. Now that we know how, we will post to our Facebook page regularly, and are even striving to post some videos on youtube (our channel is TheIARTSproject) and vimeo. If you haven’t already, please “like” us on Facebook (facebook.com/Philosophy Bagss) as that will be where we post links to our blogs and videos. Please keep in mind, that it is just the 2 of us running the whole show over here, so, please understand if we fall short on the communication side of things. You can trust that we are making up for it on the manufacturing side ;)

We really do try to answer every email or phone call we receive, so contact us with something you’d like to know about us-that might help get the blogging ball rolling from our end .

When he isn’t designing and sewing, Troy has been hard at work learning how- to , and then updating our site. We’ve added our bios this week, (with headshots to follow) and hope to add more to “our philosophy” page, so you can get to know a bit more about the family behind this business. We will also be posting our current inventory in a quick and dirty video (ala Flying Pigeon LA) so look for that on our FB page as well.

That’s it from our end for now. Thanks for all the support we’ve gotten from you! You have no idea how much it helps to keep us going! If it isn’t too much to ask, could you please spread the word about our little domestic family business (we need to replenish our daughter’s college fund before she realizes we used it to fund this venture). I wish I was kidding, but I’m not-yikes!

Keep in touch,

Joan and Troy Cameron

The Philosophy Bag Co family

Lovely Bicycle Pannier Review

Tue, 31 May 2011 23:32:29 +0000

Lovely Bicycles.com recently reviewed our two most popular panniers, the Burnside and InTrans. Thanks so much for doing such a great job and taking those great pictures, you're terrrific! Check out the review at Lovelybike.

UrbanVelo Coverage

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 23:29:00 +0000

Thanks for the kind report on or bags, UrbanVelo . It was a pleasure chatting with you guys

Great Time at NAHBS

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:24:00 +0000

Made it back from the NAHBS show, it was a pleasure meeting so many great, enthusiastic people, and the bikes too....so many artistic builders out there. It was my first time in Austin and if there is ever a sister city to Portland then Austin must be it. Looking forward to the show next year in California.

NAHBS in 2 days

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:22:47 +0000

Flying to Austin today to set up, mix and mingle. I'm really looking forward to getting input on our panniers and messenger bags from the folks at the show. The bags have come along way since we first unveiled them at the Seattle show almost 1 year ago. I can honestly say I am proud of the extra development I put into these. This is the first show where we will have so many styles represented-and, finally-panniers! I'm looking forward to meeting you at the show...

So close to opening day

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 00:19:34 +0000

Our web designer has been working frantically trying to get everything up before we head out to NAHBS. Please bear with us, and ignore the ipsum text, it won't be much longer, we promise!

Feelin NAHBS-y

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 00:14:42 +0000

I've never been to either, so I'm really excited to arrive. I'm staying at a friend's place. His name is Stan, and he's a great guy. He's a real gearhead with an anger management problem-what's not to love! He's the kind of guy that always keeps you laughing. If you come to the show you can meet him. It's been a few years since we both moved our families out of the hellpit that is LA (only to plant them in the suburbs, another form of hell, more about that another time), and we haven't seen each other since, kept in touch via the mobile, but it will be nice to hang out with him and his family. Oh yes, I've titled this post \feelin NAHBS-y\" so I guess I should mention the show. The bags are lookin sweet, so no worries there. I've got to get the booth redesigned, need to make it more shipper friendly, and get the site up to snuff before I hit the road. I'm really excited to be displaying our bags along side such fine bike builders. Bye for now-Troy.

What is the IAM?

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:12:00 +0000

We've been self employed forever, and have always discussed wanting to start our own charity, but not something that simply gives away stuff, a place that actually teaches a skill. You know, give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, teach hime how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. It's been that philosophy, coupled with the awareness that, these days, it is rare to find anyone that knows how to do anything skilled for themselves. That gave rise to the concept of the Industrial Arts Movement (IAM). My husband grew up on a farm, and I grew up less than privledged, so learning how to make and do things was mandatory. Using your hands to create, there is something magical about that. It can be something as simple as a loaf of bread, but learning how to do something gives us such a sense of fulfillment. We feel this is a lost art, and want to restore those traditions to new generations. It is our dream that the IAM will be a place for kids to learn the skills that generations before us had, woodworking, metalsmithing, etc. We also want to spotlight those folks that are still practicing those long lost traditions. Wouldn't it be great to have a place where retired folks are learning how to blog from the kids they are teaching how to use woodworking tools. There is so much potential there to change the world. We just need to get philosophy bags up and running first. Bye for now-Joan

My better half as a whole

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 00:11:00 +0000

I'm Joan, married to the mad genius that is Troy. We've been a team for 18 years, and it's never been dull, that's for sure. We are both the type of people that love creating new opportunities, it can drive you nuts at times, but can also be the best thing you've ever done. I'm the behind the scenes gal, the woman behind the man so to speak, establishing the procedures and protocol that make things run smoothly. Next to my husband and our daughter, my label maker is my most valued posession :) I'm excited to be starting a new business in this new wired world. Pictures and words can spread at the speed of light-it's so exciting to me! I'm looking forward to sharing the details involved in launching our latest line, philosophy bags, then move on to the other lines we've got in mind. Developing the Industrial Arts Movement will definitely be a labor of love, but totally worth it. I'm looking forward to the time when we can focus on building that into something that could quite possibly become the Cameron family legacy. More on that later. Thanks for listening-Joan

Please allow me to introduce myself

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 00:24:00 +0000

If you're reading this, you must have found philosophybags.com. Welcome. My name is Troy Cameron, I'm from the pacific northwest. I'm what you call a jack of all trades, master of none kinda guy. I grew up the oldest of three boys on a 40 acre farm in Pleasant Hill, OR. We worked hard, farming, haying, running a shake mill, and we played hard, fishing, camping, building stuff, blowing stuff up, you get the picture. I've been self employed for the majority of my life. I've had many interests, which lead to many career paths.I've learned a lot, and know that there is still a lot more I want to learn. The bulk of my working life was spent designing and manufacturing clothing in Los Angeles. I've owned and sold several businesses, and now I'm trying my hand at a whole new venture-Philosophy Bags and the Industrial Arts Movement. And, now, thanks to the magic of technology, you get to read all about it, via blog posts.Thank you for taking this journey with me-Troy