Bamboo Bicycle Club · since 2012
A social enterprise using bamboo bike-building to create experiences for organisations, practical education and pathways into work.
Build something yourself: a frame kit at home, or a course in our workshop. No experience needed.
kits and workshops →
Build teams and experiences: colleagues cut, shape and bind real bamboo frames in a day.
team days →
Build skills, confidence and pathways: accredited courses in prisons, and practical making for schools and communities.
our programmes →We're a Community Interest Company with a bike shop attached, not a charity with a gift shop. Kits, workshops and team days sit alongside the education, prison and community programmes. Bamboo Mobility Project CIC · 16257348: programmes, education and community delivery. Bamboo Bicycle Club London Ltd · 10809302: the workshop, kits and designs.
BBC training, customer and programme records, September 2026
“[Bamboo Bicycle Club] taps into a psychological phenomenon known as ‘the IKEA effect’, which accounts for that extra bit of affection people reserve for objects they put together themselves.”
“Going to the workshop was hands-down one of the best things I’ve ever done.”
“If Calfee are Coldplay, Bamboo Bike Club are punk.”
“It’s light, responsive and, best of all, I built it myself.”
“The bamboo bike course offers more than just technical training – it provides an avenue for creativity, teamwork, and self-expression.”
“The Bamboo Bicycle Club has impressively improved the accessibility of building a bamboo bicycle.”
“To get one of these bamboo beauties you go on a two-day course to make your own.”
“The material provides natural suspension.”
People in prison learn to build with bamboo and hand tools on two OCN London Level 2 courses: the six-week training in Workshop Skills and Sustainable Manufacturing, and the two-week Build to Bond balance-bike course.
Commissioned by prisons through the DPS and their own purchase orders.
Your team spends a day cutting, shaping and binding raw bamboo into a frame, working together with guidance at every step.
We've led team builds for Hilton London Bankside, The Macallan and Four Seasons.
From taster talks to full builds, young people design, cut and build with bamboo, gaining practical skills and confidence in school, college and community settings.
13 universities and 9 schools have built with us.
Grown, not manufactured — it earns its place four ways.
BBC training & customer records
A file, a saw, some sandpaper — everything else comes in the kit.
Most builders have never made anything before. We guide every step.
Built at kitchen tables in 45 countries, by people of all ages.
Light, strong and it soaks up the road. These bikes get ridden hard.
contents — tubes · lugs · jig · blueprint · video course
All frame kits →An example of a complete build
Julian’s full gravel build, start to finish — filmed by builder Julian Goulding
Our six-week bamboo bike-building course is now live at HMP Lindholme, Doncaster — hand tools, an OCN London Level 2 course, and a first cohort already pitching their own business ideas.
read the story
newsAn impact case study from our Project Zero workshop in Waltham Forest: 27 young people built bamboo bikes, with ratings that regularly reached 9–10/10, and grew in confidence — featuring Kyron, Mikiyas, Kenny and Najib, in their own words.
read the story
newsThe national prison newspaper on our frame-building workshop at HMP Lowdham Grange — 'a bamboozling way to build bikes'.
read the story
one craft. one engine for change.
* Kits, workshops and team days sit alongside skills programmes in schools and accredited courses in prisons.
