Bicycles don’t grow on trees. Bamboo is a grass, technically, and Craig Calfee, a bicycle designer from Santa Cruz, joined forces with two other Californians and two men from Zambia with the goal of creating bamboo bicycles. They wanted to make sustainable bikes that were strong enough to handle the rough local terrain, as well as to provide jobs for the community. The product, Zambikes, were so successful that the recently-taught Zambian mechanics took the bamboo bike idea further, creating cargo bikes, bike trailers, and bike-drawn ambulances, nicknamed “zambulances.”
The bicycle frames are slowly and meticulously crafted by the hands of Zambians who were taught mechanical and design skills. Mr. Calfee hopes to soon sell some of the bikes in the US.
With a price tag of $900 for a finished bike, these may not seem fit for the casual rider. However, if you consider the long-lasting durability of bamboo, coupled with the benefits of supporting a hand-crafted, environmentally-sustainable product and the cool-factor of being able to say your bicycle is made of bamboo, they are well worth the price.
For more information, visit a BBC article on the topic: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8125274.stm/8125274.stm
