Not terribly close to Cranston, but it's worth taking the drive to Stedman's in Wakefield. There's also Trek in Warwick

Will second Stedman’s in Wakefield. They’re the best in the area. NBX in Narragansett is good too

Trek has shops in Warwick close to Cranston line and also EP

Lil far, but Dash Bicycle on Broad St in Providence is fantastic. And the breakfast burritos from the coffee shop attached to it are worth going with my husband every time he needs another bike part.

REI has a bike shop.

And it's in Cranston!

FWIW, Trek Bikes' retail strategy has been a bit predatory and you may want to look into it a bit more before patronizing them. They have a habit of freezing out independent shops, not allocating Trek bikes for them to sell, buying them out when their business drops, then converting it to 100% Trek sales. For example, the former NBX Warwick is now Trek Warwick. NBX Warwick used to carry Trek, Scott, Santa Cruz, Cervelo, and a dozen other niche brands. Now the Trek store just sells Trek. In my opinion, that's a loss for the biking community as a whole.

Dash is the absolute best.

Really a shame too - that place was great when it was Caster's.

It’s actually on Broadway, not Broad, but Dash is fantastic and those burritos are to die for!

Bike works in Swansea or Stedmans in Wakefield. It’s possible NBX in Narragansett does fittings but I’m not sure.

BIKES

SUP KANE!

• 1 for Bikeworks, awesome shop.

Totally agree. I saw that happen to my old shop before we moved to this area last year. I avoid those shops.

I haven’t had great success there. It’s good for the odd part here and there but I haven’t felt like I was dealing with knowledgeable staff.

It's the people in the back working on your bike, not the folks on the floor. Also, go to Dash in PVD. They helped me with a warranty claim on my brand new Surly when I had it fitted. Pretty sure they aren't a Surly shop, but just gave a shit

Not Cranston but if you’re willing to make the drive I highly recommend Ten Speed Spokes in Newport!

The NBX in Gansett still sells all those brands. I seem to remember at the time the owner wanted to focus on one location - all the other NBX (now Trek) locations in RI were bought out

Yep for sure, the Narragansett NBX is a great local "real" bike shop.

The slightly-insider (former owner of a different shop) story I heard is that it wasn't such a friendly thing like he was already trying to sell and Trek kindly came along to help out...it was a bit more coerced.

Very interesting. Matt is a great guy so I have no doubts he put lipstick on the situation as to not drag them publicly. Plus, he’s still selling their product lol

These mass producers get too big for their own good sometimes and very easy to forget their roots (coming from a Trek owner)

It really does seem like manufacturers trying to get into retail often doesn't go well.

I'm in a completely different manufacturing industry, we've dipped our toes into first-party distribution and we just cannot manage to do it profitably. It's just such a completely different skillset that our organization isn't set up for.

Similar story with Andersen windows. Manufacturing is fine as far as national brands go, but the Renewal by Andersen sales arm is totally predatory.

I really don't know about Trek's internal setup, but if it's anything like what I've seen elsewhere, there are targets set by the higher ups, with healthy incentives for the Sales Dept to him them, which leads to unsustainably aggressive behavior.

Johnny’s Place in EP specializes in bike fittings!!