Clearer Vision: An Easy Way to Store Eyeware

i wear rack $35 or $50 www.BoardByDesign.net

I have some bad habits when it comes to taking care of gear. I don’t religiously clean my bike and lube my chain. I have been known to machine dry my chamois. And I regularly store my sunglasses in a backpack or throw them in a pile of old mail on my kitchen counter.

I know that if I take care of my stuff, it will last longer. It’s just that I am sometimes, in a word, lazy. So I need easy ways to properly care for my gear, including how I store sunglasses. A few months ago, I learned about a Colorado furniture designer’s invention to store eyewear, and now I’m convinced it will save me from having to buy another pair of expensive sunglasses before it’s time.

Brad Reed Nelson’s design, called the i wear rack, is clean and simple: He takes a small piece of reclaimed wood, mills it down to a super-smooth panel, bevels the edges and adds an elastic cord to hold one arm of the glasses. Hang the rack right by the door or near your bike storage area, and you have a safe spot to store your glasses as you walk in and out of the house.

“I think it’s a very barebones design for the right purpose,” said Nelson, a cyclist who first designed the rack in 1998 to protect his collection of costly sunglasses.

For a little more money, however, a special design (such as a sprocket or a chrysanthemum) can be hand-burned into the rack, giving it a touch more style. Nelson has made custom racks for bike shops, including one with the Mellow Johnny’s logo on it for Lance Armstrong.

Nelson runs an eco-friendly furniture design business, Board By Design, out of his home in Carbondale, Colo., and makes the i wear rack out of walnut or birch wood reclaimed from the flooring and milling industry. It is packaged with all the necessary hanging hardware and is easy to install.

Nelson’s cool little eyeware rack may not change my inner laziness, but it sure has helped break one old habit and will ensure a longer shelf life for my sunglasses. Now all I need is one of his nifty, hand-crafted rockers to sit in while I sip my PBR after a hot summer’s ride. Oh, wait… that’s when I’m supposed to be cleaning my bike.