PDX Bike Show March 26 2012

Along with launching our website we hosted our first tradeshow booth this past weekend at the Portland Expo Center during the PDX Bike Show put on by Pedal Nation.  We asked for (with donuts helping out) and recieved lots of valuable feedback in our effort to further develop and improve our Tree Peice Helmet lines.  We were planted right next to Ryan Leech's trial riding demo stage and his humble and yet high performance presentations were one of the few times each day that people were not dropping in to ask about the helmets.  Lots of other vendors and show attendees as well as press professionals came to visit and our weekend was really inspired by the enthusiastic responses and thoughtful questions.  We would like to thank everyone who visited for making us feel welcome and giving us a chance to educate folks in person about our simultaneously new and ancient technologies.  We learned several things from putting ourselves out there including how to improve the comfort and fit of our helmets and a new found appreciation for the long life advantage our natural fiber product has over the foam and plastic helmets that are so vulnerable to UV degradation.  We are currently back to our R&D process (as we always will be) and getting ready for the Mudslinger Mountain Bike Race in Blodgett this weekend.

In the www.bikeportland.org writeup about the show we were described as "by far the most talked about (booth) at the show".  Check it out for the date Monday, March 26th.

  Pretty cool. 

Great GearJunkie article about our helmets March 12 2012

Here is a great article written by the founder and editor of GearJunkie.com, Stephen Regenold

http://gearjunkie.com/wood-sports-helmets

Wood is Cool March 12 2012

As you might imagine or, just as likely, haven't really considered, I have spent a lot of time on marketing, like any business.  In doing so there are many paths to explore and one chooses the adventure that calls to them most.  I spend time taking opportunities to talk with others who I feel have taken on developing projects/products similar to mine because a part of me knows that is where wisdom and beautiful secrets will always exist.

So when I have been trying to develop my message about this product and ones I hope to develop some of the choices included gear and art.  I myself talk often about the helmets as 'functional art' highlighting what are the two attributes that seem most clear or interpretable.  

And also, there is this third thing that is obvious to my gut or my heart and yet harder to share and explain .  I know its not just me though.  I've been able to take that away from conversations with a few folks who have had the chance to examine things from an inside out sort of perspective.  How to boil it down?

Well, wood is cool.  That's often how it begins in my mind, or how I break the ice with another as I try to explain it.  But of course that is a careful and tepid attempt at describing it.  

We all want connection, as humans its just a part of us.  We are awed by the sun after a long winter or are drawn to (or fear) the water long before we know of kayaking or surfing or fishing.  There is something about a true friend and a forest that is the same (and yet some of us have never even fully experience either of those things).  And while we may feel amazed and grateful for our smartphone (like we did for microwave ovens) or the latest carbon fiber reinforced version of bike ( the way we felt about aluminum when it was new) we, as did our grandparents from so many years and decades and centuries and millenia back, have always been in awe of the same changing but unchanged natural world that we were built for, or to take a chance here and offer, that we were meant for.

So, and in a somewhat less than entirely concious way, what really inspired me to create this product and I believe is always at least a part of what inspires others to take interest in it is that it is connection.  Wood is a creation of life and it is kin in that sense.  It is beautiful and, if it can be manipulated to “do the job” it is also inspiring.  And yet it is nature, life...  just as we are.  

Sometimes it seems that nature is becoming the underdog, that things like the oceans and rivers, endangered animals and plants and the air we breathe are fighting for their place.  So are we.  It is the part of us that feels that connection that is, along with the rest of our natural world, fighting for its place as the amazing things we create need more and more space and time in the world, both from the natural world and from our natural selves.  That is the balance we are charged with creating in our times.

Even though most people who take interest will not ultimately buy these helmets they still serve as an attempt to bring the natural world back into our 'everyday' a little.  Fill our world up with just a little more connection than it had when the only options were plastic or composite.  You will buy what works best for you I'm sure and whether or not that is wood these helmets will still be yours to appreciate and connect to.  We always own the connection.  And it makes life a little richer.

Thanks.

Time to open up shop! March 07 2012

We are very excited to have our shop up and running. Please take a minute to check it all out. We have been working hard getting our certifications and attending trade shows to share the helmets we are so proud of.