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Bamboo bicycles in China
Hippie engineers in Portland, Ore. have found a way to design “affordable, locally-produced, handcrafted bamboo bicycle frames.”
Here’s a story (and a video) from asap:
“A bicycle built from bamboo: Now you can use grass to mow people down“
By Aaron Clark
July 8, 2007
AP Photo/Aaron Clark
Designers Liakos Ariston and Jacob Prinz started Daedalus Custom Bamboo Bikes two years ago after drawing up designs on a napkin; so far they’ve made a limited run of high-end bikes that sell for around $1,250 each.
The raw materials are sustainable, so potentially make less of an impact on the environment, the designers say. But that’s not the only appeal.
“We’ve gained a lot more respect for the material we work with because we’ve had a few accidents on them and generally riders and bikes have come out unscathed,” said Ariston, 25 . . . .
To make the bikes, Ariston and Prinz carefully hand select eight- to 10-feet lengths of phyllostachys nigra — an ebony colored bamboo native to China — and let them “relax” for as long as a year and half in their workshop.
I wrote the guys at Daedalus an email, asking them to explain how their bikes impact the environment in China, and why Chinese locals haven’t adopted the same technology. I’ll be sure to post their responses when I hear back from them.
Common estimates indicate that China is home to 450 million bicycles and 4.21 million hectares of bamboo–doesn’t it make sense to combine the two into something good for the environment?
The shift to electronic bikes (e-bikes) and the proliferation of cars has caused an overall dwindle in bicycle ridership. Because of the increased pressures facing bi-pedal transportation, China’s Ministry of Construction wants to restore bike lanes to their old glory, according to a post on WorldChanging.
I haven’t heard of any bamboo bike initiatives for Chinese consumers, but here are some links to other bamboo bike projects and designers:
Bamboo Bike Project
“The project aims to examine the feasibility of implementing cargo bikes made of bamboo as a sustainable form of transportation in Africa.”
Brano Meres Engineering & Design
“This is my second home-made frame. This time I used bamboo rods connected with carbon composite joints.”
Calfee Design
“Beginning as a publicity stunt in 1996, Craig’s bamboo errand bike evolves into a well-tested new model for the general public.”
Calfee Design bamboo bicycle
Tags: bamboo bicycle, China, design, renewable materials, responsiblechina, sustainable, Transportation
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4 comments for “Bamboo bicycles in China”
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Erica
I received a reply from Daedalus Cycles:
“Hi Erica,
Thanks for the interest. Its hard to gauge what type of impact our bikes have on China. We are working to source our bamboo locally though, the climate on the southern Oregon coast is very temperate and great for growing bamboo. It requires substantial amounts of quality control to get good pieces of bamboo and on a small scale like ours is nearly impossible to make a link with anyone overseas who wants to help us get 50 good culms per year.
So basically once we start sourcing the bamboo from Southern Oregon it will cost us $20-$40 dollars to transport it to Portland.
Bamboo bikes will never exist on a large scale because there is to much variation in the raw material and quality control on a large scale would be impossible.
Why don’t people adopt the same design? In my opinion its basically impossible to mass produce a bamboo bike.
Lower costs? The only way is to get cheaper labour. I only see our prices going up!
Thanks for the interest,
Liakos”
[...] continues their discussion on environmental practices in China with a great post on Bamboo bicycles made from renewable materials posted at [...]
[...] Bamboo bicycles [...]
Hi, before this week I had never heard of bamboo bycycles. Myself, as a person who was involved in heavy industry for many years, I know just how hard it can be to influence and change consumer trends. Things are influenced by so many factors including those that have vested interests in preventing you from introducing exaxtly that which you would like to introduce, Especially if it is made out of natural materials that grow in the environment. Their reasoning being that you are trying to steal their market. I can, however, see the production of quality bamboo bikes becoming something that could be adopted by small private manufacturers within China and the rest of south east Asia. Obviously they could get their bamboo raw material for free, something which would greatly increase the attractivity of such a proposition. Bikes produced by such manufacturers could be sold through ebay or similar internet programs to bypass the conventional corporate marketing networks. I wonder if the necessary training to build bamboo bikes could be provided by any of the international organizations involved in training and giving loans to third world people to help them get out of poverty. It would be so nice to see people riding bamboo bikes everywhere as the preferred style of bike.