Bamboo bikes: an ecological transport solution for the world's poor?
A Californian bike shop owner has developed what's believed to be the world's first ever bamboo bike, which he hopes could provide sustainable transport for the desperately poor in Africa.
Craig Calfee of Santa Cruise says that the idea of making bicycles out of bamboo came to him when the wood's strength and durability was revealed to him by his pet dog; the dog habitually chewed sticks into splinters, but bamboo was so tough that it would come out of its jaws with barely a tooth-mark. He then decided to try making prototype bike frames out of bamboo, and has since gone on to use the material for sleek, racing-style bikes.
As is the case in the UK, America is currently going bamboo-crazy, as people discover how versatile this sustainable material can be. But Calfee wanted to create more than a chic bike for the well-off, and recently embarked on a trip to Ghana where he hopes to establish the bikes and help people to set up businesses making them (without the need for power tools) and selling them. Here's hoping another really innovative use for bamboo will take off.
[Via LA Times]
Not the first: http://webhotel.uni2.dk/dcf/cyklist/cyk20102/20102-10.htm
Article from 2001 showing a bamboo bicycle made in Christiania, Copenhagen.
Posted by: Mr.B | June 24, 2007 8:51 PM