【Lily LaBeau Archives】

CHENGDU,Lily LaBeau Archives Sichuan -- Jacob Klink shows me his handmade bamboo bicycle in his shop, Natooke. It’s a gorgeous piece, strung together by natural jute, a hemp-like material.

Sold under the Source Cycles brand, the bikes are made with two species of bamboo: Bambusa pervariabilisand Arundinaria amabilis. The former is straight and wide and makes up most of the frame. The latter, because of it’s high density and thinness, is used for the seat and chain stay, a supportive structure in the bike.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable SEE ALSO: This portable standing desk is made entirely out of cardboard

Both varieties are sourced in China. Heat-treated and glossy, the bike inevitably turns the heads of anyone who walks by. Locals smile and nod; some inch forward for a closer look.

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But despite the visible interest locally, Source Cycles’ main customers are expats and foreigners who live abroad. The U.S. is their biggest market, followed by the U.K..

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

“There’s a big hurdle when it comes to Chinese perception of bamboo,” Klink says. “Here it reminds people of tea and ink blots. They don’t see it as a new and interesting material. Everyone thinks it’s a DIY thing.”

Klink is referencing the handful of bamboo bicycle workshops around China, where customers can put together their own bikes. The life span of these workshop bikes, he claims, only averages about five years.

But bamboo is more durable than people give it credit for, they say. Weight for weight, it’s stronger than steel.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

“Generally bamboo is more supple and forgiving. For instance, bamboo has a degree of flexibility. Its like a spring,” Klink adds.

And as a replaceable source, it's also fast-growing, because bamboo is a grass, not a tree, and can reach up to three feet a day.

“It grows without having to add anything,” Dr. Hans Friederich, the director general of the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR), based in Beijing, says.

“You really can’t get more sustainable than bamboo.”

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In China, the biggest market for bamboo worldwide, the bamboo industry is a $30 billion one. “Anything you can make out of fibers, you can make out of bamboo,” Friederich says.

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“The issue for bamboo bicycles is the public relations aspect. The ones that I have seen are very good. They pride themselves on quality but they’re still symbols.”

And the main problem is that bamboo isn't quite an industrially available product, Friederich says.

A single bamboo bicycle, from start to finish, takes four to five days to put together. These handmade bikes are also pricier than the average alloy bike and average around $1800 to $2000 USD per vehicle. A quality bamboo bicycle is still a luxury item for many.

Here's a customised taller bike that Source Cycles made:

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Bamboo bikes for all

There are companies, though, who are changing that. Khan Wind is one of the companies producing quality bikes on a mass scale. Based in Beijing, they’ve recently managed to crank out several hundred bicycles a day.

“Traditional bamboo has two fatal defects: industrial consistency and water resistance,” Charlie Du, the CEO of Khan Wind says. “Bamboo is prone to splitting.”

Untreated bamboo is prone to splitting.

Khan Wind primarily makes wind blades up to 40 meters long out of bamboo.

“Our wind blades have a 20-year life span. After figuring out this technology, we wanted to apply it to more traditional products like bicycles. The manufacturing process is a bit complicated but simply speaking, we take the bamboo and measure its strength and we apply a layer of waterproof film.”

Khan's bikes are comparatively more affordable than Source Cycles' at about $900. For now, they mainly supply bikes to corporations, not consumers.

Bamboo's bright future

Industry voices remain optimistic about the future of bamboo as a material.

“Bamboo is an extraordinary building material and it can even meet the stringent construction requirements of the most difficult countries,” says Gunter Pauli, a serial sustainability entrepreneur who helped build a German-certified bamboo pavilion in Colombia and of the largest bamboo structures in the world.

"The problem is that not everything about bamboo is on the internet. All of these entrepreneurs want to behave like MBAs. Scrap the business plan. Use what you have, use what’s locally available, and generate value.”

After years of research, Source Cycles' Klink is extremely proud of the product he has created. It doesn’t split and does not have an expiration date.

“It took a lot of trial and error but we did it,” he says. “Our focus on quality is to make sure our bikes stand up to the test of time.”

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Topics Sustainability