Bamboocycles clone
Build Your Own Bamboo Bike
As part of a Thaden School Intensive, Diego Cárdenas of Mexico City will be guiding Thaden students through a bamboo bike building course with extra parts sourced from Pedal It Forward. The bicycles will then be donated back to Pedal It Forward. We would like to thank the following sponsors—RDC, Hufft, and Hight Jackson Associates who helped make this student Intensive possible.
We wanted to bring this unique bike building experience to our community so you can also join us as we build bikes and build community! With his company Bamboocycles, Cárdenas melds the past and present of bike tech and breaks down the barriers to production by leading do-it-yourself workshops for folks to build their own bicycle frames with bamboo and carbon fiber over the course of three days.
The workshop schedule will depend on your pace of work but a rough outline is below:
Friday, May 17, 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm (dinner included)
Saturday, May 18, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm (lunch included)
Sunday, May 19, 11:00 am to 8:00 pm (lunch and dinner included)
Why Bamboo?
Bamboo is one of the strongest materials in nature, it can withstand up to 1ton/cm2 of compression force, this is twice the tolerance of steel. Bamboo is also lighter, making it ideal for bicycle construction. Other incredible quality is that it absorbs as much as x4 more vibrations than carbon fiber, making our bikes, the smoothest bicycles (ideal for long rides). Neither bamboo nor carbon fiber are subject to fatigue. Your bike can endure daily use and falls without losing its strength.
In comparison, it takes up to 15 years for a regular pine tree to grow and produce lumber, for bamboo its only 3 years, making it a very renewable source. Naturally bamboo generates 30% more oxygen than trees, this helps break down Co2 generated by cars.