Aah.. Well, we're not going to buy Calfees designer bamboo bikes from his workshop in the US (I wish). No, we are getting them from Ghana, where Calfee set up a 'franchise' workshop. There he taught locals to build bamboo bikes for personal use as well as export to US/EU. He put some quality/integrity tests in place to ensure top notch frames for bearable prices. Around 650 dollars gives you a 'touring' frame. I would have loved to build my own bamboo bike, but quality bamboo is hard to come by in The Netherlands. In addition, I am no engineer and rather work a week or two in a fast food joint to get the 650 bucks then spend months on 1, acquiring the right materials. 2, studying up on (bamboo) frame building and 3 , actually building and testing the bike.