The seatbelts started appearing on the messenger bags ages ago. Your friend would show up at your house wearing one, answer a question about the airbag on his bike, and then make a grab for his falling bag after you bashed his seatbelt’s button. Only after the sickening crunch of his laptop hitting your tile floor did you feel a little bad.
The guys behind those seatbelt bags were Chrome. They launched out of Boulder, Colorado, in 1994 as a mountain biking lifestyle brand. The mid-90s were a boomtown for mountain biking. Companies like Yellow Mushroom would buy a two-page spread in Mountain Bike Action and then fold before it ever got down to the business of actually manufacturing a mountain bike product. Chrome launched about the same time as Swobo and Zoic, and it sold a couple jerseys, some mountain bike shorts that were among a small collection of non-Lycra options available to off-road riders, and one messenger bag. The company stayed in Boulder for a year-and-a-half and then moved to a badass warehouse in Denver where it’d stay for seven years.
Each year Chome designers made more and more bags, until the messenger bag and messenger backpacks became the core of its line. Making bags was something Chrome found it did well, but it also had pragmatic applications in its start-up bike clothing company. Chrome had a hard time filling orders of 30 products when it made clothing, but a messenger bag can be used by a much more diverse range of cyclists.
Selling clothing as a small company is tough. If someone wants a small shirt, and you’re out of small shirts, he or she won’t buy anything. But you can make a high-quality bag, and it will last forever, and if someone wants a black bag and you’re sold out, then he or she will buy a silver one. Also, messenger bags don’t fall into seasonal cycles, and they fit tons of people.
The Chrome crew picked up and moved to San Francisco, where it’d stay. The company’s bags proved to be such a success that the owners eventually sold the majority of their business to Rory Fuerst, the man behind Keen footwear. The principle creators of the Chrome brand stayed on and worked in-house for about a year, but they eventually wore down and departed. Some of their employees stayed on while others drifted.
The co-creators of Chrome signed a two-year non-compete clause. One spent seven months in Europe, spending time in France with his wife’s family. The other went to New Zealand and traveled a bit. They kicked around the idea of launching a surf brand, but in the end decided to return to what they know.
Two years and a few months after leaving Chrome, they reconvened in San Francisco and launched Mission Workshop, a high-end messenger backpack and bag brand. Of their eight original Chrome employees, five now work with Mission Workshop. With the benefit of time off to hit a collective reset button, the cash from the sale of the principle shares of Chrome, and their expertise from 14 years of developing Chrome, the crew has already put out two top-of-the-line backpacks, and it has a messenger bag that will launch shortly.
Mission Workshop has the bags handmade in Colorado, in the factory that Chrome no longer uses. The large Vandal backpack and the small Rambler bag feature compartments that can expand to ferry massive loads around town. A Mission Workshop messenger bag will soon be available, as will some bags at more approachable price points. The bags offer rolltop compartments and waterproof zippers, and they are made from PVC-free, waterproof Cordura. The ethos of making durable products that will last a lifetime, that are cleanly designed and well-made—the qualities you used to recognize in Chrome—live on in the Mission Workshop brand.
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Tags: gear guides, mountain biking, urban
I purchased my messenger bag because I saw Jim Helpert in the office tv show (US). It’s nice and roomy. I could go around wearing it in ANY outfit. I mean any. I could go formal with a suit or go casual and it even goes well with shorts!
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I’d LOVE to get my hands on the Rambler! I’ve looked at it a few times in Denver (Salvagetti bike shop) and EVERYTHING on it seems to be of high quality! The looks are fantastic and it seems to have the durability to make the cost worth it. You’re right, the versatile design of it enables one to wear it with shorts or a wide variety of diff. clothing.
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