Renovo Hardwood Bicycles

Aha! I get to review a review. MJ had emailed to ask if they could photograph a Renovo for the front page of a bike review article. We were deep in the process of building 7 other bikes and didn't have a spare, so we had to build one in a rush. Fine. It had to be shipped to New York, and since we went to all this trouble, I suggested it be reviewed along with the others. They agreed and did so.

So, after they'd had it for several weeks, I emailed the test rider to ask how he liked the bike. He wouldn't disclose the contents of the review, but he wrote back, "every time I ride it I smile and I'm not sending it back until my editor forces me".  Off to a good start.

After reading the review, I was a little dismayed, first with a misquote, then a comment that doesn't reflect our experience at all. Well anyway, here are the salient quotes, the good first, of course:

"It's pretty, but how does it ride?" "Damn well"  

"...It can hang with carbon-fiber rivals." 

But then, in a little stand-out box off by itself:

"Renovo claims wood is as stiff as aluminum or steel" Ok, you know they meant to include 'pound for pound'. (This has been corrected on their online review).

Next:

"we noticed flex at the bottom bracket on climbs and sprints"  Ok, maybe their rider was a gorilla and it flexed. But a number of experienced competition riders (up to 185 pounds) have ridden that very bike since it was returned, and every single one is impressed with the stiffness, which is nearly always compared to carbon. One of our own ride testers said that he used to think his carbon Colnago C40 Triathlon bike (same size) was stiff on climbs until he rode this bike. (He also suggested they might have mistaken wheel flex for bottom bracket flex, especially if they throw the bike side to side. We've been riding it with clinchers rather than the tubulars that were on it, so we'll compare when he's back in town.)

10/26 Ok, we've compared the test bike to: a Trek Pilot 5.2, a Cervelo S1, a Colnago C40. The test bike is definitely the stiffest; with a 180 pound rider it out-climbs the others and fast descents are killer-- it turns like it's on rails. And while we're at it, it delivers a noticably smoother ride as well.  More to come.

And finally:

"Still, the Renovo is just too pretty for constant pounding" This one I'll take to mean that it's too pretty to harm. Well, yes. But of course so's a Specialized Transition, but you can pound the heck out of it, as you can with the Renovo. And yes you can put it away wet and dirty after a ride, but would you? Anyway, the bike takes constant pounding just fine, and the prettiness doesn't wear off.

-Ken 

Jonathan Maus visited Renovo and had a look at what we're up to very early on, before we quite had our ducks in a row actually. He gave us a nice write up and took lots of pics which he put up in a slide show. Jon's DNA is hard-wired to the bike scene in Portland, he misses nothing, nothing; from city hall activity to the latest freak bike cruising down Hawthorne. He and his website are the model for connectedness and bike advocacy in a city, may there be more like him. I predict big things for Jon.

Two small corrections to Jon's article:

1. I am not now, nor have I ever been a C.E.O. That title would get laughs from any number of former employees or anyone who knows me well. I don't even have a 3 piece suit. Come to think of it, I don't even...nevermind.

2. He said our process was 'in stark contrast to the painstaking work I've watched in other local shops...sanding etc' Well, he only saw one CNC operation out of the six it takes to make a complete frame, and he missed all the cutting, joining, bonding, curing and alignment steps in the process. Oh, and sanding, sanding, lots of sanding. There's plenty of painstaking, trust me. 

Portland Spaces Magazine

A Renovo R1 was featured as a ‘Great product for life and home’ in the January/February premiere issue of Portland Spaces magazine, a magazine of design and architecture. They described the bike thusly; ‘as light, durable and rideable as carbon fiber but exudes the grace of a handmade boat.’ Thanks PSM, we’re stealing it.