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PORTLAND, Ore.
Bamboo Bikes
Its designers say the strength-to-pounds ratio rivals some kinds of metal. Riders say the adaptability features a remarkably supple ride.
The best part: you can grow the material for these 1-of-a-sort bicycles in your yard. They’re created from bamboo.
Designers Liakos Ariston and Jacob Prinz started off Daedalus Custom Bamboo Bikes two a long time back right after drawing up types on a serviette so considerably they’ve designed a restricted operate of high-end bikes that promote for around $1,250 every.
The raw materials are sustainable, so most likely make less of an influence on the environment, the designers say. But which is not the only attraction.
“We’ve gained a great deal more respect for the material we perform with because we’ve experienced a couple of accidents on them and normally riders and bikes have occur out unscathed,” stated Ariston, 25.
They are not the only ones seeking it. Craig Calfee, a California-dependent body builder known for modern and virtually weightless carbon fiber frames, commenced building bikes from bamboo in 2005. Now Daedalus is among a handful of designers, visionaries and artists applying the material to deliver pedal-driven equipment from Slovakia to Brazil.
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WELDING WITH GRASS
To make the bikes, Ariston and Prinz meticulously hand pick out eight- to 10-toes lengths of phyllostachys nigra — an ebony colored bamboo native to China — and permit them “take it easy” for as very long as a year and 50 % in their workshop.
Just after that, the bamboo is smoked to rid the material of bacteria and fungus. A warmth application purges it of any residual drinking water, producing it considerably less inclined to cracking. Tung oil, beeswax and mineral spirits are utilized to seal the brown speckled culms.
The duo say the bamboo — a member of the grass spouse and children — has tended to react to the energy they put into it if they are as well anxious to get a bicycle constructed the bamboo likes to break up.
“A person matter we are focusing on is using anything we do and slowing it down, so you and bamboo can coexist jointly,” explained Prinz, 25.
After the bamboo has been cured and reduce to acceptable lengths to construct the body, the duo attach just about every piece to carbon fiber joints, or lugs. Traditional steel and carbon fiber are utilized for other sections of the bicycle.
The materials are fairly cheap tricky costs are about $250 for each bicycle and the bamboo for each individual frame charges just $10. But every single body is a labor-intense approach demanding about 40 hrs of manpower to entire.
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1st Globe Meets Third
Buddies since high college, Prinz and Ariston however keep their day work — Ariston performs for his family’s wine import enterprise and Prinz waits tables — but they are also drawing on much more official abilities.
Ariston, who received a degree in structural engineering from Johns Hopkins College, has manufactured an eclectic system of function that ranges from gravity-pushed h2o pump installations in rural South Africa to vegetated roof tops in Portland.
Prinz spent time doing the job for his family’s building corporation, but it was on a trip to Thailand wherever he got inspiration from observing the bamboo woodworkers of Southeast Asia.
“I noticed a whole lot of examples of what men and women have been accomplishing and the constructions they could make, it was this kind of a uncooked variety of construction but at the similar time they were being capable to develop things up to our criteria,” he reported.
Prinz said he is also commencing to experiment with bamboo for other solutions like lamps and bed frames. He mentioned he likes to “get third earth instruments and methods — supplies that have been applied for hundreds and hundreds of a long time — and seriously place a 1st environment twist on it.”
But constructing bikes will allow them to force the boundaries in techniques other factors will not.
“When you are likely cruising down a hill at 40 mph and you look down and you know you are on two parts of grass, it’s quite neat,” said Ariston.
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Posted by taisau on 2007-11-12 03:53:32
Tagged: , bike , pdx , handmade , Oregon Handmade Bicycle Present , bamboo
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