Wooden bicycles, lots of pics

Yet MORE cardboard
Cardboard-Bike.jpg

Here:
http://www.ohiobikelawyer.com/bike-law-101/2009/09/bike-art-toooo-cool/

Apparently in an article in Woman’s Day magazine.
 
635917321967638842-bamboobike.jpg


Black Belt's bamboo bike boom

Pam Dorr laughs at the idea that a bicycle made out of bamboo would be flimsy. It’s not the first time she’s heard that kind of skepticism.

“We just built one for a 300-pound guy in Colorado who’s on pretty rough roads,” Dorr said. “He told me, ‘I’m a big guy, and I want it to last.’ I said, ‘Alright, I’ll get a thick piece of bamboo for you.’”

She doesn’t have to go far to get it. There’s enough within a block of her group’s workshop in Greensboro to build several hundred bamboo bikes a year, and much more in the surrounding area.

Dorr moved there a little more than 10 years ago to head up a Black Belt nonprofit meant to kickstart a resurgence for Hale County. The goal was to build affordable housing, spur economic development and start youth development programs. Bamboo bikes offered one unique path to doing that.

“We develop products out of stuff we have, and what we’ve got a lot of is bamboo,” said Dorr, executive director of the Hale Empowerment Revitalization Organization and its offshoot, HERObike.

They formed a partnership with the School of Architecture at the University of Kansas, where professor Lance Rake and students help with design work for the bikes. The result is a carbon fiber-laced bamboo frame that appeals to racers and enthusiasts.

“Bamboo is kind of shock absorbing, so you don’t really have to wear padded shorts if you’re a racer,” Dorr said. “It gives a more comfortable ride.”

Other companies make bamboo bikes, but at a cost of about $600 to about $2,500 HERObike is among the least expensive options. That’s led to people around the world buying the Greensboro bikes online — most of their sales come from France, Germany, Japan and Thailand.

HERO uses the money to build affordable housing, and bicycles are far from their only project.

The nonprofit’s PieLab bakes and sells homemade pies while teaching job skills for the retail and hospitality industry. The youth program will spend part of the summer drying algae out of fish ponds to clean the water and use the by-product for home fertilizer.

They’re also planning to install solar energy technology at businesses in the Black Belt that have over $20,000 a month in power bills. Dorr said projects like that help the community while also teaching green technology.

“It’s a lot easier to learn it if you’re doing it,” she smiles.

Meanwhile, KU professor Rake is researching some new uses for bamboo.

HERObike has already branched out into making bamboo skateboards, electric bikes, paddleboards and kids’ pushbikes. It even holds workshops to teach people how to make their own bamboo bikes.

About 30 people work there now, a total that goes up and down depending on demand.

The Black Belt, a strip of counties in mostly west and southwest Alabama, has struggled with poverty and unemployment for years. Hale County’s unemployment rate was 1.5 percent higher than the state average in December, but that was still 3 percent lower than neighboring Greene and Perry counties.

So, is bamboo the way to solve the area’s problems?

“It’s one way,” Dorr said. “In any plan for economic development, I’d hope there would be multiple prongs.”

You can see more at herobike.org.

635917322739063787-bamboodesign.jpg


History of the Montgomery Advertiser
Our history goes back as far as the presidency of Andrew Jackson. The newspaper began publication in 1829 and was called The Planter°s Gazette. It became the Montgomery Advertiser in 1833 and emerged as the leading newspaper of the new Confederate states by 1861.After the Civil War, Major William Wallace Screws, a Confederate veteran, became the editor and began to lead the publication toward editorial prominence in Alabama.
 
Well, well.. wrote about these folks from Brooklyn, NY in this thread back in December, 2010:
Lock said:
bbs_logo.png

about
We spread the benefits of bike-making.

We've taught over a hundred fifty people to make bikes at the Bamboo Bike Studio. Tens of thousands of miles of test riding. Riding through winter, through potholes and all over the world. We are helping to start a factory in Ghana in September, with the goal of providing the lowest cost and highest value bicycles to people who want them most.

We love what we are doing. It started and will continue in little rooms. I hope you take the lessons we've learnt and spend some time in a little room of your own. Bring in a friend, drink some coffee, put on your light and put on some music, and build yourself a bike.

... and seems they are still going strong, showing up at the Toronto Bike Show happening right now:
12804817_1150797301610678_4066940590051361689_n.jpg


Have you ever seen a bamboo bicycle? Stronger that steel, Danso Bamboo Bicycles are made by hand in Kumasi, Ghana and assembled in Canada on Prince Edward Island. Check out this remarkable machine at the Toronto International ‪#‎BicycleShow‬ this weekend at Exhibition Place.

(Seen on site Facebook) :)
 
12809580_906933156071734_4420546709031152397_n.jpg


12790874_906933086071741_3652909003747050921_n.jpg
 
10402895_980410148696512_3637639287486982788_n.jpg


From these folks:
[youtube]zsyZK5FDHfo[/youtube]

from Val-David, Quebec, seems like. Per that Wiki thingee:
Val-David is a unique village of almost 5,000 inhabitants located in the Laurentian Mountains about 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of Montreal, Quebec, Canada that attracts about 100,000 tourists a year. Val-David is predominantly Quebecer (i.e. French-speaking) and has a sizable minority anglophone population.

The village is famous for its artistic character. Many renowned and amateur artists, writers and dancers live and have lived in Val-David, notably Québécois poet Gaston Miron, jazz bassist Charlie Biddle, ceramist Kinya Ishikawa (who hosts the 1,001 Pots – the largest annual ceramics festival in North America), the painter, engraver and sculptor René Derouin (who hosts an international site-specific art festival annually), and Alan Gerber the singer-songwriter, the painter Jean-Philippe "JP" Audra founder of the Creativismo art movement, and the painters Guy Montpetit, Normand Ménard, Martine Cyr, and Mark Lummis.

Val-David is also a centre for much outdoor recreational activity...
 
Thse are some unpractical bikes, whats next........a similar style, chopper front end, cruiser but with fat wheels with slick tires.
 
That is cool.

I hope someone can come up with a way to easily copy expensive bikes geometry, without all the "eye-candy" curves.
 
You can take thin wood strips and steam them until they are soft. Bend them, and then set them in a form so they will cool-off in their new shape. Then you can glue several strips together to make a strong laminate, like a DIY plywood.

You can also steam-bend bamboo. I've been thinking about building a jig to do this, and I hope to move to a house next year which has a 2-car garage, so one of the bays can be my shop.
 
"Search found 45 matches: +bamboo"... Seems a recurring subject in this thread. :) Here's another:
"MSOE students designing bamboo cargo bikes, factory"
http://www.jsonline.com/business/ms...argo-bikes-factory-b99753583z1-385711601.html

b99753583z.1_20160706112420_000_g0pga65q.2-1.jpg

(Pic caption: Nate Miller (from left), Elizabeth Schmitt and Aaron Armstrong, an assistant professor in the industrial engineering program and mechanical engineering department at Milwaukee School of Engineering, are shown with the low-cost cargo bikes and wheels they designed. Credit: Michael Sears)

"We are actually going back to books from the 19th century to see some of the designs," Armstrong said.
:D
 
By EVJA ABU HASIRA in the Netherlands
13625380_1057294681008058_6574289906231752026_n.jpg


(Before conversion.)
 
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=78530&p=1159106
[youtube]ikyxKgu8WPo[/youtube]

http://boobicycles.com/gallery/
boo-bamboo-urban-sup.jpeg


http://jalopnik.com/5870797/the-ten-coolest-wooden-cars-of-all-time/
Wood-is-your-Friend.jpeg


http://bamboobicycleclub.org/hall-of-frames-2/
INFOGRAPHIC-BAMBOO-BIKE.jpeg
Bamboo-Cargo-Bike.jpeg
Bamboo-Fatbike.jpeg
54--archive.jpg

[youtube]3j7MDKikgNI[/youtube]
[youtube]QWa-matkzhY[/youtube]
 
From March this year:
LockH said:
Well, well.. wrote about these folks from Brooklyn, NY in this thread back in December, 2010:
Lock said:
bbs_logo.png

about
We spread the benefits of bike-making.

We've taught over a hundred fifty people to make bikes at the Bamboo Bike Studio. Tens of thousands of miles of test riding. Riding through winter, through potholes and all over the world. We are helping to start a factory in Ghana in September, with the goal of providing the lowest cost and highest value bicycles to people who want them most.

We love what we are doing. It started and will continue in little rooms. I hope you take the lessons we've learnt and spend some time in a little room of your own. Bring in a friend, drink some coffee, put on your light and put on some music, and build yourself a bike.

... and seems they are still going strong, showing up at the Toronto Bike Show happening right now:
12804817_1150797301610678_4066940590051361689_n.jpg


Have you ever seen a bamboo bicycle? Stronger that steel, Danso Bamboo Bicycles are made by hand in Kumasi, Ghana and assembled in Canada on Prince Edward Island. Check out this remarkable machine at the Toronto International ‪#‎BicycleShow‬ this weekend at Exhibition Place.

(Seen on site Facebook) :)

... and they've popped up again:
EnterGhana-logo-350x81.png

EnterGhana is your no.1 spot for the latest Breaking news, Lifestyle Tips, Celebrity Gossip, Sports News, Music, Fashion,Gh Trends and more.
Remember, its Everything Ghanaian and more, all in one place. EnterGhana

"Booomers launches first world bamboo electric bicycle in Germany"
http://enterghana.com/booomers-launches-first-world-bamboo-electric-bicycle-germany/

my_Boo_my_Volta_web-1024x864.png


Booomers International Limited, a Ghanaian social enterprise making the news around the world with its bamboo bicycles and accessories is once again making the headlines across Europe for all the right reasons.

Booomers International Limited and their German distributing partners, MY-Boo, recently launched their latest product, the Bamboo Electric Bicycle (MY VOLTA) at the just ended 2016 Euro Bike Show. Being the first of its kind around the world, the bamboo bicycle with mid motor which is yet to hit the market is already receiving great reviews from industry professionals and positive feedback from bicycle lovers across Europe.

And article ends:
Booomers International currently sells in six countries under different brand names including My-Boo in Germany, Asante Bamboo Bikes in Poland, Danso Bikes in Canada, Booomers in the US, Ethical Wheels in Australia and. Mr. Danso said the company is fast expanding and it is going to be a major catalyst for job creation.
 
It is indeed, and I'd love to take it for a ride!

Like it? You can build something very similar yourself in the garage with hand tools, for probably a fraction of the cost.
Built one last year, and I'm very happy with it.
If I can do it, it isn't that hard :wink:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=74252

Bamboo Bike.JPG
 
[youtube]agLK33zQ5mY[/youtube]
 
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