Why Wood

Natures carbon fiber...It’s our secret weapon. 

Wood is carbon, and it’s made of fiber. Enough explanation. 

Wood has unique engineering properties that deliver superior ride quality and durability compared to man-made materials, and...it's sustainable. When the right wood and build method is combined with the available array of advanced bike technologies, it becomes a high performance living machine that will forever change your understanding of, and relationship to, "wood" and "machines". 

Live Active Suspension

Shock and vibration are the villains in ride quality. It is delivered to the rider through the frame, straight into your joints. Renovo engineers chose wood as a frame material for its outstanding shock and vibration damping. It also is light in weight, stiff and durable. It competes with and in many ways, surpasses other frame materials.   

Frames have gotten so stiff that many brands use gimmicks like plastic, rubber or spring inserts to improve the ride quality of otherwise uncomfortable frames. When comparing the weight of a Renovo frame to metal and carbon fiber (not wood fiber - that’s us) frames, add up the weight of the suspension components on the other frames. You don’t need to do that kind of math on a Renovo. It has built in suspension.

And that suspension is “live” and “active”, because we tune seat stays and chain stays to deliver Live Active Suspension. It combines the damping properties of wood with tuned stays to provide the finest possible ride quality. 

The Renovo Hollow Frame

Renovo frames are hollow to reduce weight, resulting in frame weights of 4 to 5 pounds. There is no internal reinforcement, but there is an aluminum sleeve for headset bearing loads, a carbon fiber or aluminum sleeve for the seatpost clamp, a T47 threaded aluminum bottom bracket shell and aluminum dropouts to support the axle, derailleur and disc brake. We could make the frames lighter, but we think of them as heirloom rather than disposable, so they're designed for durability and ride quality rather than the lightest weight. They are built to last a century, not just a few century rides.

Not enough yet? How about these advantages of wood...

• Wood is far superior to carbon and the metals at shock and vibration absorption

• Wood is not susceptible to crack propagation from dents like the metals, nor is it notch-sensitive or damage-concealing like carbon.

• The Renovo wood frame has much greater damage tolerance than other frame materials.

• Although tough, if damaged, Renovo frames are usually easily and inexpensively repaired

• Wood is as stiff pound for pound as the metals, even as it excels at absorbing vibration.

• The fatigue life of wood exceeds steel or aluminum, and approaches carbon.

• Wood is sustainable, while the metals and carbon are not. Worse, the production processes of the metals (especially titanium) and carbon are heavily polluting. 

Wood creates a bike that is more like a living thing, than a machine. Our bikes seem to be alive. They are also very much at home in the forest. Or let them bring some nature to your urban forest.