A couple of great guys, Erik Olson and Dan Powell, recently moved to Portland from the icy confines of Madison, WI to start a new cycling accessories company, Portland Design Works. I was luckily enough to connect with them and we worked together to launch their new website, ridepdw.com. In their own words,
We both long ago found a home in the cycling industry. After years of fixing flats at the shop, gritting it out at races, braving icy commutes and eating instant noodles, we have come to a conclusion: this is all we’ve ever done and all we want to do.
So we moved to Portland and started designing products that we as urban riders would want to use. We chose Portland as a home for the company because we figured you’d start a surf company near great waves or a wind farm on a vast plain. Likewise, we started our bicycle accessory company in Portland because the bike-friendly culture allows tons of folks to get around easily by bike. It’s in that great urban cycling atmosphere that we design and test our products. Portland Design Works echoes the urban cycling culture we find inspiring. Anyway, we think the stuff we came up with is really cool. Hope you think so too.
Their first batch of products are on proud display, although they won't actually be available until February, when they can be purchased direct through the website. The site design, based on PDW's identity, was beautifully conceived by Jack Edwin, and Jeremy Caldwell of Eternalistic developed the Drupal theme. Speaking of, the site is built on top of Drupal 6 leveraging Ubercart for shopping cart features. PDW is another great addition to Portland's rapidly growing cycling industry and I'm sure they'll succeed based on the look of the product's I've seen so far.