The Brotherhood of the Traveling Shorts or The Correlations Between Boulder,Bend, SWAE and Tolkein

Have you ever felt like having a memorial service for a piece of clothing?

Today was one of those days for me as I tossed a pair of mid-thigh length Patagonia shorts in a trash can at the REI in Bend, Ore. Granted, they were literally unraveling at the seams and stained to the point of indecency, but I had been proudly wearing them for over ten years through the cycling trends of men’s fashion. I briefly reflected on the varying corners of the earth these shorts had taken me before I tossed them into the trashy depths like the elder Rose with her emerald necklace in “Titanic.”

With the thoughts of those organic cotton britches still lingering in my mind, I picked up the phone and called Cog Wild. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Cog Wild runs mountain biking tours around the single track Mecca that is Bend and has been doing it so well for so long that National Geographic Adventure named them one of their Top 200 Adventure Travel Companies. I got in contact with Lev and then rode over there before he took off for the afternoon.  Lev was stoked, and we’re proud to welcome him here to the ever-growing family that is SWAE Sports.

I like Bend. I mean really, a whole lot. It has an amazing outdoor community and coffee shop culture that I must admit, had me looking at home prices in the classifieds. I was always a bit skeptical that Outside Magazine could really swap Bend and Boulder back and forth in their “Top 25 Towns to Live.” But I’m starting to get it.  I had a meeting yesterday morning with Jim Ablao of Chockstone Climbing Guides and as we swapped stories about the people and places the sport had taken us, it felt like any other Sunday Morning at Saxy’s Cafe in Boulder; rendezvousing with a climbing partner before heading out to Eldo. It’s those kind of meetings that I love most: when the business aspect is secondary and you just start feeding off each other’s excitement about getting outdoors.

We’ll be in Bend for another day before turning our attention southbound. It’s been great to be able to take a relatively long breather, respond to emails, incorporate outfitters feedback into our systems and brainstorm with Dan about ways of streamlining SWAE.  I never quite understood how people could work 15 -hour days and be stoked when Monday morning finally arrived, but this has assuredly become my reality.

I’ve become so passionate about what we’re doing that I wake up talking SWAE and go to bed doing the same.  The best part is that our entire team is of one mindset. We recognize that this idea is so great, and the timing is so right, that our diction has become filled with words typically reserved for the mystical quests found in a J.R.R. Tolkien novel.   And with that I’ll leave you with this:

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring