Rebuilding
After Hurricane Helene
Hurricane Damage
On September 27th, Hurricane Helene brought catastrophic damage to our city of Asheville, NC and many areas of the South East. We are fortunate our team, family members, and homes are safe. However, our 3,000 square foot workshop was destroyed after being flooded with 5 feet (1.5 meters) of water from the French Broad River.
We pulled out as many items as we could, right up until the water reached the electrical box. While we saved enough important machines and fabrics to rebuild the business, we lost the bulk of our raw materials, many machines, and fabrics. The bigger loss is our ability to work and pay our 7 employees.
Rebuilding
We do have a path to rebuild our business. We are currently sewing past orders in a temporary space and have plans to rebuild in a new space this spring (higher up from the river).
For 10 years we’ve worked to grow this business. Over this decade the biggest impact came from the people we met along the way: our customers, family, friends, neighbors, and dozens of businesses lending resources and expertise. During the time since the flood we’ve seen this same community pull us up and guide us forward.
It’s going to be a long, tough road to rebuild, but we know we aren’t doing it alone. Thank you all who are here to support and help create our new path forward.
UPDATE 1.15.25 – We expect to open custom framebag ordering in early February.
Support
While we do have a fundraiser, we encourage you to support us as a customer. If you have the means, please consider shopping our in-stock gear, our relief T-shirt, or a gift card (store credit) to be used when we are back up and running in our new space (spring, 2025). All sales will be spent on paying employees and replacing essential items needed to become fully operational again.
We can’t wait to get back to doing the work we love. Thank you all for your kindness and support. – Greg
Shop our Hurricane Relief Shirts
Our dear friend Emily (Cameron Creative Co.) put together this video to capture this moment in time. A special thanks to PRESSIO and Fuel Goods for giving us space to set up the temp work area seen in the video and for fundraising to help get us on our feet.
We’re feeling extremely grateful for our local Western NC community and bikepacking community at large. We look forward to the day when we can give back and help enrich these communities that have pulled us up. Onwards we go.