It all started with a Facebook message and the rest, as they say, is history. Sitting in our second floor design studio, we heard him coming before we saw him. Riding atop his Harley-Davidson Sportster with a big ol' pack and a Nomad Tent strapped to his sissy-bar, Matt pulled in to meet us in the lot.
An army boy from Kentucky, Matt- or as we've come to know him, Rat- has been living on his bike for the last few months and sleeping in our Nomad Tent. With cold beers in our hands, we sat and listened as Rat told tales of his travels. Full of highs and lows, he shared problems he had faced on the road, beautiful places he had taken his bike, and worrisome nights where 50 mph winds shook the bike and tent around him. What became immediately clear, was Rat's uncanny ingenuity... Whatever problem he had faced on the road, he was able to solve quickly and cheaply with a simple trip to the hardware store.
For one, he purchased a pair of $10 walking poles from the closest Walmart, pitched them to the lead line of his Nomad Tent and thus removed all the slack from out of his sleeping space (visible in featured image). Not necessarily a game changer, but he figured out that if he raised the pitch point up, it would remove more slack than if pitched to the ground.
Now, why would an army boy from Kentucky being reaching out to us at Abel Brown? Turns out that some of the ideas he thought up while riding those long stretches of road are actually awesome. So awesome in fact, we may be collaborating with Rat to design and bring one of his ideas to life. But until then, you all are just going to have to sit pretty and wait for the big reveal...
Until next time-
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