NEWS
2022/11/23

SimWorks USA Shop Visit – Wheel Builders in Town – A Day with Golden Pliers

SimWorks is a business built on relationships. What started out as a desire to produce quality bicycle components that demonstrated the quality of craftsmanship in some of Japan’s most celebrated manufacturers, grew to a hope that the focus on heritage equipment and the rich culture of cycling in Japan would resonate with a larger audience of riders around the world who have an eye for timeless style, an appreciation for high-quality, durable goods and a desire to connect with a community of fellow enthusiasts who hold those life enriching elements of riding our bikes near and dear to our hearts.

Portland, Oregon is home to SimWorks USA- a town fully entrenched and invested in making bicycles a part of our everyday lives. The city has placed an admirable emphasis on funding and maintaining a cycling infrastructure that for decades now has set an example for other cities in the US for how to successfully integrate bicycles in to their urban planning. It’s an enjoyable and for-the-most-part safe place to ride a bike, and affords a tremendous amount of riding outlets- both in the urban environment as well as just outside of town via bike, or a short drive to state and federally managed lands that are endlessly strewn with tarmac, gravel, and singletrack riding.

Portland has seen it’s fair share of bike shops come and go in the years that I’ve lived here, and while there are certainly a host of standout bicycle retailers in the city, our friends Kevin Purcell and Becky Newman have carved out a unique niche in the local scene by offering a carefully curated selection of products, quality service and a community friendly vibe with an emphasis on inclusivity and empathy that has clearly resonated with a lot of people in the local cycling community, and certainly with us here at SimWorks.

Golden Pliers have distinguished themselves as our most trusted dealers here in the Rose City, and we’re grateful for the business and personal relationships that we’ve continued to build over these past years that they’ve been open. It’s a pleasure to get to work with people who are driven by their ideals to create a better community, and to frame those efforts with the bicycle at their foundations.

Rie and I got to stop in to Golden Pliers recently to shoot a little video edit highlighting their business and what makes their shop special. We were able to coordinate getting some footage of Kevin building a set of our new Standalone rims, and I got to sit down with him and conduct a pretty thorough interview- discussing a range of topics from how he became a business owner, to where “Golden Pliers” came from and what makes it a special place both here in Portland, and in the industry at large.

Get comfy for a few moments and enjoy a deep dive in to this All Star SimWorks dealer.

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