Mick Hartley

Ooh yes please. The latest in bicycle technology – and green too, so we cyclists can be even more smug about our planet-saving lifestyles:

Though it's not quite the ecological miracle:

One of the biggest disadvantages was that it split easily, down the middle. To solve this Calfee [Craig Calfee, "the Zen master of bamboo-bike builders" – this is, of course, California] smoked the bamboo and also tempered it with heat. (Today the bamboo has to go through a four- month process before it can be used.) He also coated hemp or carbon fibers with epoxy resin and used them to bind the bamboo tubes together.

Around a hundred frames later, Calfee had finally built a bamboo bike frame he could believe in. His verdict: The vibration absorption of the bamboo frame was better than that provided by a carbon fiber frame. "The bamboo bikes are a much smoother ride," he says. He also found that the bike had impressive impact resistance and was tougher than carbon fiber and less prone to fracturing. These results were confirmed after the bamboo frames were tested at the EFBe bicycle testing laboratory in Germany. But such hardiness has a price — a mountain bike frame made out of bamboo will set the average rider back around $2,700 (€1,879).

(Via)