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Now he’ll have more time to ride his dozen personal Ducatis and other bikes as he closes Renaissance Motorcycles, the shop he opened on East Speedway in 1978 after working in his carport for a couple of years.

“I turned 70 in March, so that was my time out,� said Spreter, who owns the business with his wife, local artist B Brandel, who also serves as office manager.

Renaissance launched a going-out-of business sale in late October after Spreter couldn’t find a suitable buyer for the business at 4411 E. Speedway, where the shop moved from its original East Speedway storefront in 2005.

“Forty years, that ought to be enough for anybody to do one thing,� he joked.

Spreter said business has been good lately, though it hasn’t recovered from its peak just before the Great Recession in 2008.

Spreter launched Renaissance as a dealer of Ducati — an Italian maker known for its racing superbikes; Moto Guzzi, another Italian motorcycle brand now owned by Piaggio; and scooter maker Vespa/Piaggio.

Along the way, he added dealerships for two other Italian marques, Aprilia and MV Agusta.

Spreter also did a lot of riding and some regional road and dirt-track racing, building a bike with friends that had a second-place finish at a Daytona Bike Week race in 1982 and also racing at California’s Laguna Seca.

Spreter said he’s enjoyed the diverse aspects of the business and the passion his customers have for their bikes.

“People are a lot more emotionally invested in their motorcycles than their automobiles,� he said.

He recalled some lean times starting out, when his wife would come to work with the couples’ son in a basket.

Spreter said some of his greatest challenges came in keeping up with sales goals in the very narrow market for Italian motos, noting that his sales ranged from 50 to a high of about 120 bikes during his best years.

“Its been a small market, and the manufacturers are always chasing numbers,� he said.

New Ducatis range in price from about $8,000 for smaller Scrambler street bikes to roughly $15,000 to $20,000 for bigger cruisers, dual-sport and racing-style motos. Ducati’s famed racing superbikes start at about $50,000 and can reach $80,000 for some limited-edition models.

Spreter’s also seen many market trends come and go, like when scooters started flying out of showrooms when gas prices spiked in the mid-2000s.

“When gas got expensive in 2004, scooters went crazy — everyone was selling out of them,� he recalled.

Spreter noted that motorcycles have become increasingly sophisticated, with the emergence of of electronic fuel injection, anti-lock brakes and electronic traction control, pioneered by BMW and Ducati.

Valuable resource

Spreter says he had a couple of people interested in buying the business but no takers.

The head of the local Ducati riders’ club said ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ is losing valuable motorcycle resource — as well as its only dealer for Ducati and the other Italian moto brands for which Renaissance was a dealer.

“Besides being a Ducati dealer, he was a wealth of information, since he had been doing this since the ’70s, he knew these bikes and what they needed,� said Andy Ruhl, president of Desmo Southwest, a local Ducati group with about 100 members and a mailing list of about 250.

“We’re really losing a really wide-ranging skill,� said Ruhl, who bought two Ducatis from Renaissance over the years.

Spreter said he expects to stay in business a few more weeks, but after that, owners of Ducatis will have to travel to the Phoenix area for authorized dealer sales and repairs. Renaissance also was sole local authorized dealer for Moto Guzzi, Aprilia, MV Agusta and Piaggio/Vespa.

While many shops work on multiple brands including Ducati, only dealers can properly perform certain maintenance such as updating software, Ruhl said.

Spreter said he’s heard of a couple of people interested in the Ducati dealership but hasn’t heard anything definite.

A Ducati USA spokesman said the company “does not publicly discuss the business of its dealers, or our network development activities.�

Renaissance will be the second local motorcycle shop to close this year.

Performance Cycle Center, the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ area’s only dealer of Triumph and KTM bikes, closed its doors near Interstate 10 and Prince Road earlier this year, leaving riders of those makes without local dealer service.

“The number of independent motorcycle dealers in town is dwindling,� Ruhl said. “Kind of sad for the local economy supporter.�

The closures come after some additions to the local moto market in recent years.

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ got its second Harley-Davidson dealership last year when the local owners of ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Harley-Davidson opened Old Pueblo Harley on the east side.

Tempe-based RideNow Powersports opened ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s first modern Indian Motorcycle dealership on North Oracle Road in 2014.