Anyone here ride a bamboo bike for their commute? If so, how's the ride feel? Any problems with cracking, or the bamboo degrading over time? Pros and cons, that sort of thing.

I'm thinking of buying a DIY bamboo set from calfee to try it out, it's pretty damn cheap for a new frame.

Thanks.

Hey that looks pretty cool;

https://www.shopcalfee.com/copy-of-ca...kit-road-bike/

I got the kit but we got twin newborns in winter, a new dog in summer, a travel trailer in the fall, a flaky nanny to replace, and steady uncertainty about my employer’s future plans for me, and now my wife is growing her business, so free time and open table space on that scale has been unavailable. The 29er kit had geometry errors in the plan, but I was planning on making it “modern” geometry regardless so I was basically going to throw the plan out.

In theory it should be no better or worse than a CF bike just as long as it’s well finished with epoxy and polyester. Surely that depends on the build quality, though

Luckily, my uncle is a general contractor, and is also bike obsessed. I'm thinking that I'll be able to rely on his help to make sure the angles are set properly, and that it's glued/epoxied well enough.

Teak is real.

Not to sidetrack the thread, but did you know bamboo is grass? If not, you can impress your bamboo biker buddies. 😀

I know what you're saying, but can we get this to rhyme somehow?

Ah, that Teak mystique...

Maple is a staple, but Hickory is quickory...

Salsa bikes has a "Timberjack" model, but I am hoping for a Salsa "Balsa", which would be crazy light with great "glide" characteristics.

Teak is Freak?

I want a bamboo bike by the way. I've never figured out why I want one, but I do.

Wood would...

Actually, Bamboo is a grass. But, point taken. Hmmm. How about:

Put some Grass under your @$$...

If your ride is bleak, try teak?

Teak advantage is; it will not float . (so it may not "float your boat")

"Teak is on fleek!"
"Bamboo is true!"
"Mesquite for the street!"

Maybe we should try a bike frame made from cow bones

Veal is Real!

Here's an intro video, with links at the end to videos for all the steps


Looks like fun!

teak is sleek
grass is fass
wood is good
....
dead horse is beaten... oops broke the streak

If part of the idea is to enable 3rd worlders to build their own bikes cheap, I'd like to see a hardware-only kit for sale for like $30 (BB shell, dropouts, etc), let people harvest and dry their own local bamboo.

this is crucial, because the kit comes with no instructions whatsoever

Plus a coaster-brake wheelset (with tires and tubes), crank, pedals, chain, fork and stem, maybe bars could be bamboo, and that would be minimum amount for a complete bike

I was with you up to this part. Anyone savvy enough to take on a DIY Bamboo Bike project in a place where Bamboo is indigenous can probably scrounge all the components you mention in this post. In the previous one, i.e. dropouts and such, those would have to be cut from a donor frame with a torch and that might be beyond practical.

Wouldn't all those components have to have come off another bike? If bamboo frames are just made locally to replace broken frames of other bikes, the net population of bikes can't really change. To really make a difference, it has to become super affordable and doable for a population to create lots of new bikes

That ship has sailed. Never again will emerging economies trudge upward on the evolutionary trail of human powered transportation innovation. Boneshaker to Penny Farthing to Safety Bike to 10 speed to Fat Bike to Recumbent to Velomobile to ??? Nutz to that!

Future economies are going to go straight from perambulation to self driving cars. Even in the developed world, bicycles exist in a unique class of quasi-plaything that is sometimes useful. In the Third World they are more useful than they aren't, but they really want to be driving cars like the grown up countries. There are scads of unserviceable bikes rusting in the tropics that can be donors for Bamboo Bike projects. They would be scrapped anyway. More will not be needed.