We created Renaissance Bicycles to focus on customer-driven bike builds.  These builds usually fall into two categories:

• All new with a retro style:  Complete bikes spec’d from the wishes, dreams, and desires of the customer.  Rivendell and Soma frames are our two most popular starting points.
• Upfits of classic lugged steel:  An old neglected friend that is need of a new life.  Your frame and “keeper” parts, our new components, wheels, saddles, etc.  We provide a detailed price quote before anything else.

While we do some occasional bike repairs and parts sales, our mission is to provide high quality and highly individual complete bikes.  In other words, we purposely avoid the normal day-to-day distractions of a local bike shop in order to focus on the needs / wants / whims of our individual customers.

Our little secret is that we can provide high quality service, parts, and upfits for less than the local bike shop.  Since we don’t stock the usual bounty of helmets, kids bikes, car racks, etc. we avoid the high overhead costs associated with brick-and-mortar bicycle retailers.  We only stock the most common parts needed to build our custom bikes, a few components and accessories we feel are “best in class”, and the unique items necessary for a specialty bike business.  By using these inventory best practices, we are able to sell custom complete bikes for less than most local bike shops.

However, we want to make it abundantly clear that we love local bike shops! By no means are we promoting using online discount resellers (we’ll just call them “Discount Direct Warehouse Fort”), but instead we promote supporting the small business owner by playing to their strengths.  In other words, if you live in Western North Carolina and want to buy a new Giant, Orbea, Raleigh, or Surly, please visit our local shop, BikeWays.  Heck, we might even see you there on one of their weekly bike rides.

If you are one of the unfortunate souls who finds themselves dissatisfied with your LBS (the usual quote from customers is along the lines of, “Our bike shop said we should just buy a new bike.” or “The sales-teen was too busy texting and pulling up his pants to help us.”), then we are happy to make a recommendation from our dealer network.  Don’t be satisfied with less-than-stellar service.

So in summary … Renaissance Bicycles does not fit neatly into the typical “online retailer” profile.  We feel our model is a great way for a customer to get a very unique bicycle at a reasonable price.  We also know that all bikes, regardless of condition, original price, or outdated technology deserve a second life.  And hopefully it is abundantly clear that we are equipped to help you make decisions about paint, parts, and potential … and then to make your dream bike a reality.

We specialize in building custom item-by-painstaking-item complete bikes … but we hope that you’ll visit your locally owned bike shop for all of your parts, accessories, and service.

• (1) You Dream (2) We Build
• Quoth the Raven, “LBS Nevermore”