Bamboo bikes!

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Anyone build one? Got one? Make one? http://ghanabamboobikes.org/en/
http://www.zambikeszambia.com/contact/
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I gots to have me one :D Some are metal fixtures with bamboo straight pipes shoved in, which looks like dog doo IMHO, the ones straight out of the jungle made by natives look cool as heck to me! Id love to pass me up some carbon fiber or ti on some boo!

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I have a email into two of the African companies distributing these for a quote. If anyone else is interested let me know.....
 
I'll warn you right now that those bikes may be sustainable, but they're not cheap. If you really wanted to build one for yourself, you could do so by cannibalizing a throw-away Magna for all the non-bamboo parts. The various joints get lashed together with carbon fiber "twine" and saturated with two-part resin.

BTW, bamboo is not so exotic as you may think--there's a large stand of the stuff growing less than a mile from here...in suburban Maryland. It would need to be cut, dried, sized, checked for warpage; all that good stuff. But hey...free bamboo bike.
 
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American and europeans as usual think highly of what they make and Ive seen frames hovering around $1K-$2 US, of course these are more massaged by hand into smooth shapes and ruin the look IMHO. Alibaba has frames more like what im after for $50-$200, US....I am anxious to see what they cost "straight out the jungle" lolol...I might have to buy 10 of em, but if the price is okay, im fine with that. I am in good with 3 LBS's, I am sure i could hang em up and get one or two for free in the end :D
 
I still have one bamboo/carbon bike frame left. I'll try to uncover a pic of it. I sold/traded the other two frames for $150 plus shipping
 
Actually it was $150 shipped that I sold this one for

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The one that I have left is almost the same geometry and size.

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Super cool man, a dirt jump boo bike! LOL! who made those? what was your opinion of them?

The frames seemed to be well made, but the components on the frames were definitely low end. I bought three from a guy on CL. I think they were used as demo bikes to pursue the bamboo market. He got them at an auction. One was set up as a road bike with normal diamond frame geometry. The last one I sold was rigged up as a hybrid. And this last one is rigged up as a MTB.
 
Picked up a bamboo frame at VeloSwap on Saturday. Photos to follow.


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Picked up a bamboo frame at VeloSwap on Saturday. Photos to follow.
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Here’s the frame. I had the springer fork which I mocked up. Will need to shorten the steerer tube if I use it.
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Rideable mock-up. Assuming this frame came from a kit, it was built by a shop in Denver area.
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Admittedly, I never saw the attraction to "boo" bikes. If I were to make a bike out of anything other than conventional materials, it'd have to be plywood. It probably would not be as strong as boo, but would certainly look better.
 
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