Bamboo Bicycle

The bamboo bicycle that I made this summer.

One sour note you may hear about the eco-friendliness of bicycles is that the bicycle itself took a lot of energy to make, especially an aluminum frame bicycle. The amount of energy is nowhere near the amount of energy required to make and move around a car of course, but energy wasters like to latch onto this point and may even exclaim “gotcha!” as they point their wasteful finger in your face. Well here is an answer back: this bicycle frame is made out of bamboo grown in Mexico. (The joints are carbon fibers held together with epoxy).

I made this bike frame in the context of a workshop held by Diego of Bamboo Cycles and hosted by Bike Walk Tompkins.

The rest of the parts were all scavenged from Bike Walk Tompkins’ parts room, except for the controller (in the seat bag) and the battery, both of which I had lying around.

Even though this bike has only a single speed, it is a great climber because it has a powerful Ebike motor. A 52v battery paired with a 20 amp controller can put about 1,000 watts through the geared hub motor. And the single speed setup is very robust since there are no derailleurs to break. It’s a great bike!