Bamboo Bicycle: It's not just about alliteration

Bamboo is an amazing plant. It has been a staple of life in Asian countries for hundreds of years. They use it in architecture, medicine, food and even in art. After atomic bombs were dropped on the country of Japan, bamboo in the area was said to have received [marginal] damage and was one of the first plants to reclaim its place in the landscape. (http://ezinearticles.com/?Green-Bamboo:-Strength-in-Flexibility&id=18657)

Well, this ecological stalwart has been making a big push in parts of the world west of the lands of Columbus' expectations as a super-cool garden decoration and as flooring for your brand new, trendy condo. However, none of this is as impressive as the idea of building bikes from bamboo.

I was first introduced to these bikes by a friend who found Calfee Design's website. Check out this mountain bike


That's right. The entire frame is made of bamboo and hemp fiber. I think this is quite possibly the coolest thing I've ever heard of in the realm of cycling. Some novelties, particularly where sports equipment is concerned, just don't work. Bamboo is actually in some ways superior to other frame materials (steel, aluminum, titanium, carbon fiber, et al) and provides a very environmentally sustainable alternative to processed, man-made materials.

So, it's certainly one thing for there to be a boutique bicycle maker here in the U.S. offering up $3,000 (frame only) bikes. It's a completely different story when this innovation leads to something that can help people in less affluent, less developed countries improve their quality of life. Check out the Bamboo Bike Project.

Bamboo is a prominent figure not only in Asia's landscape, but also in Africa's. The abundance of this raw material means that, when properly trained, the people of Ghana and other African nations are empowered to make their own bamboo cargo bikes, creating a whole new industry and with it, a new means of sustaining life itself. Maybe that's overstating things a bit, but it's worth a shot, right? This is something that they can truly own, instead of something that we just hand to them and hope it takes root (because that's going well with that whole AIDS education thing, right?).

So much of their traditional way of life has been eroded away. Some might say that this is progress, that they have to move towards industry or be doomed to fall further behind. But what if these bikes, or more broadly but accurately bamboo itself, represent the beginning of fitting industry into their culture instead of changing the culture to accommodate industry? Is that not a better pursuit?

Clearly I'm out of my jurisdiction talking about political, cultural and economic rammifications of wester societies' involvement in Africa's development. I didn't exactly do my research on this. I sure don't sit around watching programs on Npt about Africa. I am interested in the subject and hope that enough smart people are out there working on this kind of stuff in my mental absence.