5/02/2006

Visit to Renaissance Cycles in Santa Barbara

Update 10/2008:
appears that Baron and Family, due to flooding and space issues, moved the shop inland a bit to Santa Paula CA and is on the web at: www.cafedevelo.com


I jetted off to the coast to visit my brother and took a bit of time to go visit the motherload of old bikey bits at the about to open Renaissance Cycles. The shop is in the last sprint of fixing up and organizing before opening to the public, but I was able to drop in, say hi and chat a while with Baron Corpuz, the proprieter. It was a great place to visit, packed to the gills with nice old cycles bits, not to mention a truly incredible storeroom area with organized loot from raiding european suppliers of their stock.

They are opening their shop on May 14th and having a grand opening. If you are in the general area, go see it! It is well worth a visit, hopefully the pics do it justice.

Click all photos for MUCH larger panoramas, really, they are big, but they show alot more than in the little pics.

Long panorama of the main shop with the coffee bar in the back:


In addition to parts, Renaissance Cycles has a wealth of lugged frames awaiting paint. They are resurrecting the Labadie brand among others. Here is a nice city/randoneery bike:


Campy shipping crates everywhere:


Ralleigh style tube crown on this nice Coppi frame, but filletbrazed:


Some sort of moldering french cyclotourist tandem in the back, beautiful, click for the whole bike (you are clicking on all the photos right???):


A display of Cannibal bikes, with a signed bartali poster and infantry locker (what is the cycling translation of chaussers?)


A display of gios bikes and brooklyn chewing gum jersey, with dutch ladies bike and wool jerseys in the bigun:


Binda toe straps in apothecary jars, click for the big bar paraphanelia and brake display:


Cases and cases of maillard cogs:


A pic by my brother, my meagre purchase, NOS mavic racers for the using, Baron has 100's of sets left, click for still life with pringles:


Click all photos for MUCH larger panoramas, really, they are big, but they show alot more than in the little pics.

Anyhow, go go go go, Baron is a great guy, spent alot of time telling Elena and I about his by-the-container-load scores from obscure distributors in Europe, neat stuff. Big thanks to Baron for taking the time to let us visit and let me take photos.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have bought many things from Baron.
Sometimes they were amazing deals.
Binda toestraps... mustard color Binda toestraps. The feel. The smell. Once I experienced that I could understand that deep longing of others for imported fancy bike bits. Most often Italian.

I would probably buy anything that is packaged in that wax paper with cool printing on it.

Quality toe straps such as the Bindas and any kind of toestrap buttons are two things I wish I had known about years sooner.

I hope Baron succeeds in his new venture. It looks like it.
And then runs a clearance sale every now and then!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your posting about Renaissance Cycles. I bought a beautiful Pinarello Gavia TSX frame from them when they were in Europe and tried to get on their fascinating web site just to marvel again at the treasures. Your article was as close as I could come. Their site is down. Loved your photos. By the way, they shipped that frame overseas, brilliantly packed, and it arrived in impeccable shape. Still have it built up with Chorus. What a deal!

Unknown said...

hi there Baron, Martin Ladds here from Holland (remember me PDM?), Profile?,how's live man? I'm working in a bicycle store in Eindhoven now.We sell most kids bikes and bakfietsen,you know them?
Soon we will open a new store in Eindhoven and i will be the manager of that store...
The name of the store wil be "de Fietsfabriek" nice huh...So i need a lot of tools for the shop and advice from you if you want to help me with that please...
Please contact me by phone or email please 040-2121494 or http//www.dekinderfietsspecialist.nl
Best regards Martin Ladds

Anonymous said...

sorry,

http://www.dekinderfietsspecialist.nl

Greet's Martin