Riders have been loading their bicycles up with gear to travel across the country for many years, but the need for lighter, specialized gear to use on narrow trails has opened up demand for specialized packs.
Bedrock Bags and Velorution Cycles, two companies founded locally, merged in January to help meet the growing demand from bike packers in Durango and nationally.
But the two businesses have functioned as a partnership since the beginning.
The owners of the two met after Andrew Wracher, the founder of Bedrock Bags, walked into Joey Ernst’s bike shop, Velorution, with his first set of handmade bags.
Wracher recalled Ernst saying: “I think I could sell these if you make more of them.”
In the last few years, the online sales for Bedrock Bags have grown beyond what Wracher can handle alone.
Around Christmas, he shut down his website for 20 days to get caught up on orders and make bags for the shopping season. After the website went live, he sold out in nine days.
Up until the merger, Wracher had been working out of his home on industrial sewing machines making about 70 bags a week by himself.
The merger will allow Wracher to train employees to help him manufacture more bags and keep up with demand.
“There’s an awful lot of bags that could have been out the door if we had more manufacturing capability,” Ernst said.
The businesses’ move to a building near the Horse Gulch trailhead also offered the space to move manufacturing out of Wracher’s house, but otherwise, nothing has been outsourced.
“At this point, it’s all created start to finish in this room or in this building,” he said.
As bicycle packers, both Ernst and Wracher design the bags based on what’s needed on the trail. Ernst also uses them to compete in long-distance races.
“I get fast results on what works and what doesn’t,” Wracher said.
In the long-term, Wracher would like to see the businesses grow to a point where some of the bags could be made by a contractor. But he hopes to keep the custom orders and designing in Durango.
Russell Zimmerman, the former owner of Durango Cyclery, has also seen the bike-packing industry mature from rear racks and pannier bags used in bike touring to the lighter bags suited for riding narrow single-track trails.
“Bike touring has been our thing long before bike packing arrived,” he said.
It was a movement driven by racers that can be a little intimidating for some. Getting started doesn’t have to require lots of custom gear, Zimmerman said.
“Just a simple rack and a couple pannier bags and you could go just fine,” he said.
mshinn@durangoherald.com
