Ritte Bicycles: High Performance Bikes Inspired By Modern Art

Do you need to have experience as a bike racer or frame builder to start a bike-building company? And if you have that experience, will that make the bikes you build better? I’d say no. All that is required is a passion for the sport, and Ritte Bicycles has that in droves.

Who Is Ritte Bicycles?

The company was founded in 2010 in Los Angeles, California, by Spencer Canon. Ritte Bicycles is a niche builder that produces titanium, carbon, and steel road and gravel bikes, builds its own wheels, and sells branded cycling apparel and accessories.

The company’s mission is as follows: “Ritte strives to produce modern art in the form of high-performance bicycles. No stone is left unturned in the design and production of the best performing and most striking looking bikes possible.”

Modern Art Meets The Modern Bicycle

Admittedly, the builders at Ritte Bicycles come to the world of frame/ bike building with no background in the craft. What drives them is art, a passion for bikes, and creating a bike that everyone (not just pros and pro teams) would love to ride. They say, “We’ve worked tirelessly to build the bikes we thought were missing from the world, not the ones that fit marketing copy.”

While Ritte Bicycles has only been producing bikes for 15 years (a relatively short time in the cycling industry), they’ve sponsored teams, riders, and events. Its bikes stem from passion, not from integrating the latest tech innovation or trimming weight to make the lightest bike possible.

For Ritte Bicycles, it’s about building bikes they like to ride and, that hopefully, their customers will as well. In other words, it operates based on the definition of the Flemish word Ritte: to ride.

Ritte Covers All the Bases: Bikes, Wheels, Components, and Apparel

Short of the groupset that comes pre-installed on its bikes (SRAM or Shimano), Ritte Bicycles builds its own frames, wheels, and cockpit components. For around $1,500, you can have a set of road, gravel, or all-terrain carbon wheels from OTHR WHEELS, Ritte’s in-house wheel brand.

A new bike from Ritte Bicycles runs to the $5,000 price point, so you may be better off buying a full bike instead of individual parts.

It also sells an integrated carbon stem and handlebar set and a carbon seatpost on the component section of its website. Apparel, another area of its website, features T-shirts and riding kits. Ritte’s prices are typical for other bike builders for this merchandise.

Last Thoughts

Ritte Bicycles, while still a fairly new frame builder to the cycling industry, has already established itself as a quality builder of road and gravel bikes. Pro teams obviously have seen and appreciate what they are doing.

So, it remains to be seen what the company will do going forward in an already overcrowded market to stand out for everyday riders. But its Passion for treating the bike as a piece of art is a unique approach for its brand.