SANTA MONICA, California — Spencer Canon didn’t set out to start a bicycle company. He just wanted a kit that didn’t suck.
He found the jerseys and shorts road riders wear boring. Uninspired. So he designed his own, black with light blue and red and yellow stripes. The old-school Belgian vibe looked great, but it needed something.
It needed a story.
Canon found one in the life of Henri “Ritte” Van Lerberghe, who once won Belgium’s biggest race on a borrowed bicycle after downing a few pints at the pub. His improbable career underscored everything Canon thinks cycling should be: fun, free and a bit irreverent. He and his friends started wearing the kit on rides.
That’s when things got weird.
“We were riding as a fake Belgian team that doesn’t exist, but the kit looked so cool we actually got sponsors,” Canon said, laughing at the recollection. “It took a few months, but our fake team and our fake brand just exploded. I realized I could take a fake team and make it real.”
Ritte Van Vlaanderen Bicycles was born.
Above: One of Ritte's neighbors offers his opinion on the Ritte Muur, the company's latest model.
The guys at Ritte (pronounced “Rit-uh”) had no experience in the bike biz when they launched the company in 2010, which may explain why they’ve done everything backward. They started with a jersey, which led to a team, which led to them building bikes, which they sold through a viral marketing campaign. In one particularly funny ad, the UCI announces it is banning the Ritte Bosberg from racing because it provides “an unfair aesthetic advantage.”
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