Bicycle Maker Grows Sustainable Bikes Made of Bamboo
October 2, 2008 · Print This Article
It just might be the ultimate in eco-friendly bicycles: frames grown in a field out of a highly renewable material that doesn’t require pesticides or fertilizer, and needs very little water. Bicycle maker Craig Calfee, based in Santa Cruz, California, creates made-to-order bicycles with frames that are grown bonsai-style, coerced into the desired shape while they’re growing. The result is strong, earthy-looking, highly-sought-after bikes that go for $2,700 a pop.
From Wired:
To increase production and improve design, Craig is experimenting with growing bamboo into pre-formed shapes in the field.
By forcing the bamboo to grow through carefully placed barriers, the naturally straight plant grows with the bends and curves he needs for frames and other components.
Calfee said he’s experimenting with a limited number of plants, but can envision fields full of bamboo. “It’s like mass production,” he said. “A factory in a field. You can have row after row of bamboo growing into the right structures for bike frames.”
According to Calfee, bamboo is an ideal material for bicycles: It’s stronger and lighter than most metals, but absorbs road vibration much better.
“It’s tougher than metal,” he said. “It takes impact very well.”
The bamboo frame tubes are held together with a hemp epoxy composite, which is made of long strips of hemp fiber soaked in epoxy. The result is organic, tough and super durable. Calfee claims that the bike offers better performance than traditional aluminum bikes.
Another beautiful blend of high-tech and low-tech… the effect of the bamboo and hemp paired with carbon fiber and titanium components is striking. It seems like, over time, this concept could be applied as a low-cost solution to transportation in third world countries – production costs would probably go down as the manufacturing becomes more efficient. Oh, the possibilities of green tech!
Link [Wired] + [Calfee Design]
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This is a beautiful bike - and different than the one they’ve been making for a long time. It’s a great idea, and the use of bamboo in such instances seems to have a lot of potential - both pragmatically, and stylistically. I only wish I had more info on sourcing of the bamboo. Does anyone know where it comes from?
I wrote about this concern, and my support of the bike, a while ago. You can find it here: http://tinyurl.com/4qeau5
Best,
Ben
Calfee presently sources its Bamboo for the commercial product line from Taiwan. Appended below is an extract from an interview hosted at: http://www.sprig.com/experts/156/output/print
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In what ways are your bamboo bikes “green”?
The bikes are made with bamboo and hemp fiber. Those are the top two fibers that can be produced from bad soil. Both are quickly renewable resources—bamboo takes about three years to grow new and hemp only one. We get our hemp from Romania, which has an old tradition of making hemp rope and fabric, and our bamboo comes from Taiwan. In Taiwan, the bamboo is smoked, which is a pretty interesting way to preserve things. The bamboo sequesters the carbon from the smoke rather than polluting the air, so the process is carbon neutral. It’s similar to smoking fish. The process kills all the microbes and insects in the bamboo and stabilizes the moisture content. That means the bamboo won’t rot or split. The bamboo bike gets people to think about using natural materials, and it’s a good bike to have if you’re sociable, because people stop to talk to you about it all the time. And of course the bamboo bicycle is green because it’s non-polluting, the same as any bike.
How is Epoxy green??? and non recycled rubber tires and metals “green”? The transportation CO2 emitions of the boat that brings the bamboo from taiwan,,,how in the hell is any of this green???Not to mention the amount of electricity and electric power tools used to build this over-priced bicycle. Its a fine idea, but i wouldnt call it “green”. Maybe some yuppie lawyer living in suburbia might feel a little pride knowing hes being “green” riding this, but it doesnt fool anyone else
this is not eco, the first bikes were built with wooden frames, nothing eco about it, the tires are rubber manufactured tired, and manufactured bike parts, how can a manufacturing process be considered “eco”???? have you ever known any manufacturing process that did not polute?