Terms of Service

These terms (“Terms”) are a contract between you and Provara LLC, a Washington single-member limited liability company (“Provara”, “we”, “us”), and govern your use of the website at vellum-bikes.cc, the configurator, the customer portal, and any bike you order through them.

By using the site or placing an order you accept these Terms. If you don't accept them, don't use the service.

1. Who we are and what we do

Provara is a small Seattle-area shop that sources, imports, and builds high-end custom bikes on behalf of riders who want one. We are not a manufacturer of frames, groupsets, wheels, or components. We are not an authorized dealer for most brands we carry, and we do not act as their agent. We broker the purchase, build, and delivery of components selected by you.

Throughout these Terms — and on every paid-in-full invoice we issue — this is what we mean by broker, not deliver: we make our best effort to source, build, ship and after-sale support each order, but coverage and resolution of any component defect is the relevant brand's call.

2. Your account

You must be at least 18 years old (or the age of majority where you live) to place an order with Provara. You can browse Provara without an account. To configure a build, place an order, or access the customer portal, you sign in with Google, Apple, Microsoft, or a passwordless email link. You're responsible for keeping your sign-in credentials secure and for activity under your account.

New accounts go through a manual review (typically a day or two) before the configurator unlocks for paid orders. We may decline service to anyone, at any time, with or without cause; if we do that to you after you've paid a deposit, we'll refund the deposit in full.

3. Orders, deposits, and final balance

• Quote. Build prices shown in the configurator are quotes, not fixed prices, until you place a deposit. If a component's landed cost changes materially between quote and order (currency moves, supplier price change, supplier dropping the SKU), we'll tell you and offer to either revise the quote, swap the component, or cancel and refund.
• Deposit. A build moves to “ordered” when you pay a deposit of 30% of the quoted total (or a flat amount we specify on smaller builds). The deposit is what lets us commit cash to suppliers, freight, and shop time. The deposit is non-refundable once we have started procurement, except as stated under Returns & refunds in our FAQ. If procurement has started but no funds have been irrevocably committed to suppliers at the time you cancel, we'll refund the unspent portion.
• Mid-build payment. Larger builds may be split into a deposit, a mid-build payment, and a final balance, in milestones we agree before procurement starts.
• Final balance. Due before the bike ships. Once the balance is paid in full we issue a final invoice with sales tax, shipping (BikeFlights to your address), and any agreed adjustments itemized. You can pay via Stripe-hosted checkout from the link in the email; we don't see or store your card details.
• Sales tax. Stripe Tax calculates and we collect sales tax based on your shipping address. You're responsible for any use tax in jurisdictions where we're not registered to collect.

4. Warranty & coverage

Provara stands behind the build itself. If something we did during assembly — torque, bleed, dish, tape, alignment — is wrong, we fix it. That is on us, and covered by a workmanship warranty that runs while we're the most-recent person to have wrenched on the bike.

Component defects are the manufacturer's call. The frame, wheels, groupset, and every other component carry whatever warranty the brand publishes, for whatever duration the brand publishes, under whatever conditions the brand publishes. We'll point you to the right contact and what the brand needs to start a claim — but running the claim, return shipping and any customs are yours, coverage is the brand's decision, and we don't handle return logistics or translation. We don't self-insure component warranty. See Warranty and Warranty & RMA timing for the detailed breakdown.

Assumed risk. Cycling has inherent risk. By using a bike Provara builds you accept that risk. Carbon-fiber components in particular can fail without visible warning if they've been crashed, over-torqued, or mishandled; inspect your bike before every ride and have any post-crash component inspected by a qualified professional before you ride it again.

For post-crash claims see the warranty section of your invoice (or /support/warranty) — where the brand has a program, we'll point you to it and what they need within 30 days of the incident; running the claim is yours.

5. Returns & refunds

Custom bikes are not stock products. The deposit is non-refundable once procurement has started, and finished custom-painted bikes are FINAL SALE. The full policy — including the 7-day return window for completed builds, the 15% restocking fee on returned parts in original packaging, and the carve-outs — lives at Returns & refunds in our FAQ and on every paid-in-full invoice. Those terms are incorporated into these Terms by reference.

6. California Prop 65

⚠ Warning: Cycling products can expose you to chemicals including carbon black and DEHP, which are known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. For more information go to P65Warnings.ca.gov.

7. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Use the site to break the law or to ship a bike to a destination under US export controls.
• Try to access another user's account, build, or invoice.
• Scrape, crawl, or otherwise programmatically harvest content without our written permission.
• Reverse-engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract source code from the configurator.
• Send the configurator assistant prompts that try to extract another user's data, our supplier pricing, or our staff instructions.
• Use the service in any way that interferes with normal operation for other riders.

8. Communications

By placing an order you agree to receive transactional email from us at the address on file — order confirmations, build updates, payment receipts, the final invoice, and warranty correspondence. These are not promotional and you can't opt out of them without cancelling the build. Promotional email (none today) would be opt-in and separately unsubscribe-able.

9. Intellectual property

Everything on the site that isn't yours or a third party's — the text, layout, photos shot by Provara, the build configurator UI, the editorial copy in the FAQ — belongs to Provara LLC. You can read and share links to it. You can't redistribute it commercially without our written permission.

Brand names, logos, and trademarks of component manufacturers belong to those manufacturers. We use them descriptively to identify the parts we're building with, not to claim affiliation.

Build photos we shoot of your finished bike may appear in our public garage and on social media unless you ask us in writing not to publish them; we won't publish photos of you or your home, only the bike.

10. Liability cap

To the maximum extent allowed by law, Provara's total liability to you for any claim arising from your use of the site or from any bike we build is limited to the purchase price you actually paid us for that bike. We are not liable for incidental, consequential, special, or punitive damages — including lost time, lost wages, missed events, replacement transportation, or pain and suffering — even if we've been told they were possible.

Nothing in these Terms limits liability for our own gross negligence, willful misconduct, or anything else that the law says we can't disclaim.

11. Disclaimer of warranties

Except for the workmanship warranty above and any rights you have under applicable consumer law that we can't disclaim, the service and every bike we build are provided “as is” and “as available”. We disclaim all other warranties, express or implied, including merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Component warranty is the brand's, as covered above.

12. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify Provara and our suppliers against any third-party claim arising from your misuse of the bike, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of another person's rights, except to the extent the claim is caused by something covered by our workmanship warranty.

13. Suspension & termination

We can suspend or close your account, or refuse an order, if we reasonably believe you've broken these Terms or that the order is fraudulent. If we close your account and you've already paid for a build that's in progress, we'll finish the build or refund what hasn't been spent on procurement, whichever you prefer.

14. Changes

We may update these Terms from time to time. The date at the top reflects the latest change. If a change materially affects your rights, we'll email account holders with active or completed orders before the change takes effect.

15. Governing law & disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Washington, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute arising from these Terms or from a Provara order will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in King County, Washington, and you and Provara each consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.

You and Provara each agree to first try to resolve the dispute by emailing support@provara.cc with a clear description of the problem and the resolution you're asking for, and giving us 30 days to respond before filing anything. This 30-day cooling-off does not apply to (a) actions in small-claims court, (b) claims for injunctive relief, or (c) intellectual-property claims.

16. Miscellaneous

• Entire agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and any invoice we issue you together form the entire agreement between us about the service.
• Severability. If any part of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest still applies.
• No waiver. If we don't enforce a right immediately, that's not a waiver of the right.
• Assignment. You can't assign these Terms without our written consent. We may assign them to a successor that takes over the Provara business.

17. Contact

Provara LLC
Kirkland, WA
support@provara.cc