Olympics Edition: 10 Days in London

by Carry HQ, August 29, 2012

Culture

One of our friends, Mike Weiss, was lucky enough to be in London for the recent Olympics and he’s pulled together a neat little post about what he saw over there in the way of Carry. Read on below…

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I am lucky to count myself as one of the 2.5 million fans who made the pilgrimage to London over the last two weeks (or so) to support their home country. The experience was once in a lifetime, being able to cross items off the bucket list like watching a match at the hallowed ground of Wimbledon or seeing some of the world’s best play at Wembley.

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Hats off to London for being such gracious hosts with volunteers who were so happy to be a part of the games, merrily pointing you in the right direction or answering your annoying out-of-towner questions. Below are my observations and notes of 10 days in London:

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1. No Messenger Bags:

It was odd at first. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Something was clearly missing from my visual cortex. Living in SF, you grow accustomed to every other person rocking a Timbuk2 (Classic) Messenger Bag or Chrome Citizen Bag. At the events and walking around, I could count the number of people with a messenger bag on one hand.

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2. Quechua, Jansport and Osprey ruled the day:

Being across the pond, I love getting insight and access to more European centric brands like Quechua which every other person had. Big enough to carry the essentials (water bottle, sun block, umbrella) and whatever schwag you pick up that day.

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3. Really?:

As Taylor or any of my friends will be happy to tell you, I’m not the most fashionable person they know. So perhaps I can’t say anything so I’ll let you be the judge.

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4. Old Faithful:

With heritage the new trend du jour, it’s a breath of fresh air to see a bag that is as timeless as its style. One of the most fun conversations of the trip involved going up to a stranger while waiting at the baggage claim to try to convince him that I’m not a creeper but merely in love with his 15-20 year old REI pack.

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As you can tell, they don’t quite make them like they used to. The best part was the glimmer in his eye when he waxed poetic about the adventures and beatings it’s been through. You coulda fooled me. Let the countdown to Rio and the World Cup/Olympics begin. For those curious, I took my Osprey Waypoint 65 which had enough room for all my gear (2 cameras, 12 rolls of film), clothes and gifts.

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Mike Weiss has always believed that a bag serves a purpose and used this excuse to make sure he had a specific bag dedicated for specific use cases. When not obsessing over the latest and greatest, he can typically be found either running, biking or looking for that perfect shot. He currently does marketing for Triple Aught Design.

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Side note. All images except the header image were shot by Mike Weiss. The header shot we grabbed from Santa Banta as it’s nice and pretty 🙂