I got the idea because I love wheels, a lot.

Text: Silje Strømmen
Photos: Mari Oshaug

“OK, go”, Jude Kirstein Gerace shoots. Listening to the tape recording of our conversation last November I’m surprised by her stern voice. It makes me nervous.

This is not how I remembered it.

As the voices on the tape keep talking I am typing as fast as I can. In the background I can hear music: soft indie. I recall the warmth of the workspace we were sitting in, the smell of the plants and Jude’s motto “we need to see living things during our day. If not all of this daylight would be wasted” and that really yummy salad I had for lunch half an hour before.

And then I remember it: Jude’s smile. Her massive, big, bright smile that makes everyone feel welcome the moment they walk through the doors of Sugar Wheel Works. Funny thing, isn’t it, how listening to voices can play with your memory. As I hear myself asking my first question “what do you do here?” Jude’s voice softens.

“Actually, is it ok if I work while we do this?”

Jude founded Sugar Wheel Works (then Epic Wheel Works) in 2009, after being struck by inspiration while on a three-month bicycle tour of Patagonia the year before. That watching someone work is the best way to get to know him or her definitely counts for Jude. Studying her checking that the tension in a wheel set is uniformed and balances the tension out is like watching a harp player in action. She clearly loves what she do.

“All we do is wheels; we hand build custom wheels. Sometimes they are not custom, just ordinary hand built, but made better than what a machine would. I think we do a better job than what your average bike shop, because this is all we do”, Jude tells us about what Sugar does. Sugar Wheel Works specializes in topquality, durable, maintainable wheels, handbuilt in Portland, Oregon. Jude and her team are committed to designing and building wheels that are “deliciously fun to ride” and pride themselves in being “more than just another bike wheel shop”.

We don’t need to take her word for it, for as she is talking Mark walk into the shop.

“Hi Mark, how are you doing? How did you do?”

Mark looks puzzled for a second, before being introduced to Jude‘s “new friends from Oslo” (imagine the scenery: one journalist, one photographer and one videographer taking over a small workshop). He has just finished his second wheel set, the first one without “Jude looking over his shoulder” and has come in to get it checked.

As Jude gets to it, Mark, a previous student of Sugar Wheel Works wheel building class, tells us that as an architect, he enjoys understanding how things work. “It’s just fun to know how things go together and being able to do it yourself”, he says.

And being able to build wheels he is. After checking that the tension is uniformed, Jude gives him an A+ and the compliments “You did a really nice job on these. You nailed it”.

What makes you more than just another bike wheel shop?
“I think we really focus on our relationship with out customers. When we are working with a customers we are really trying to figure out what they want out of the wheels set. Today for example, someone came in and said that they really wanted x hub. I was like “great, this is why I think you want this hub, but the maintenance of this hub is going to be really high, so is that something that you think you are willing to do?”

We try to figure out what they want and that also means really knowing the products, the vendors and how well the vendors stand by their products and where their tolerances’ are. That is what we are great at.”

Jude’s dad was an engineer. Growing up in Chicago, she was a good kid. Just not as good as her sisters and was therefore banished out to the garage a lot. Sounds like punishment, but really, it wasn’t:

“I can remember from being a little kid that he (her dad) would give me jobs around the garage, just to keep me occupied. I had no interest in doing the things that my sisters were interested in doing”.

Wheel building is often about technical creativity, something Jude likes. It is also about aesthetic creativity and it has a lot to do with curiosity (and maybe a bit of stubbornness and patience).

“I really like building wheels. It comes second nature to me. It’s not complicated – it is like baking, why do people like baking? Because it tastes good? Yes! And it’s the process of it that is somehow cathartic. I think that is what I enjoy about it. I like running a small business too. I think it is a lot of fun: a lot messier and creative. The real creativity is definitely in running a business for sure. I’m getting to interact with people on my own terms. That has been a lot about fun”, Jude says about what it is about wheels that she likes.

As you probably understands by now Jude is a fast talker. Not in the terms of wordsper-minute: she can stop and pause in the middle of a sentence.

Rather fast talker in terms of talking passionately, using the word “fun” a lot and switching rapidly from one subject to the next, which makes an interview so much more interesting and rewarding.

What is your favourite part of what you do?
“That must be a top three list:

1. I love the people I work with. The team that we have here is phenomenal worldclass team (Jason Nolin, Ryan Linville and Dan Waugh).

2. Our customers.

3. I like the opportunities I get to make a difference in my community with the work that I do. We build wheels, but I’m also on the board of the bicycle transportation alliance and I give tours to kids-camp and sometimes we offer internships, especially to women, which is a really big part for me. Wheel building is the backdrop to all of my favourite things.”

The typical person walking through Sugar Wheel Work’s doors is someone who takes commuting, or any aspect of their riding, seriously. They wants something built with quality, and they also want to interact with people and to make sure they get the advice and guidance that is best for them.

When a customer comes in and say “I want a wheel set” what is the process from there? “Then we look at four different aspects: we ask them what they are going to use the wheel set for, what bike it is going onto, what they can tell us about their riding style and if they have broken wheels before and what that looks like. By then we kinda have gotten to know them a little bit and found out what their budget is as well. That helps us narrow things down. We also ask them about the level of maintenance they want to do on their wheel set. That is a really big one because it is easy to sell wheel sets, but then you want someone to stay happy with it too”.

When building a wheel, the most important part of the process is a combination of a ton of small details.

“When we think about the wheel being true, we think about it being true in five different aspects and each of those aspects are really important. I would say one of the biggest things that are forgotten is what I’m working on now, which is balancing off the tensions. We true with sound so that we can balance out tension while we are building”.

What is the most fun part about your job?
“Depends on the day. There is so much I love about what I get to do. I love doing tours with kids camps, that is so much fun. Often they are not expecting to come to a shop that just does wheels. I remember when I was young and my dad would bring me on all of these errands. And he took me to a shop that just sold faucets. And I though “how do a shop just sell faucets?” When you see that as a kid: that you can kind of do what you want in life if you are willing to work for it. That says a lot. So I hope to do that for other kids. Or at least – this is my version of a faucets shop”.

I spent two hours and 15 minutes hanging out in Jude’s workshop. Customers frequently interrupted the interview, or just curious by-passers who wanted to see what was going on or say hi. Watching Jude work, and repeating it all while listening to my tape recorder, I learned three things:

1. To know that she runs a good business and that she really tries her best makes her proud. And that she might not do everything perfectly, but it is not from the lack of effort.

2. That her thoughts on women and cycling are “more, please”, “how can women support each other in a complete authentic way” and “not every women is the same”.

3. Jude Kirstein Gerace is a really great person.