Impact Stories

Kate Rawles built her own bamboo bike — then rode it the length of the Andes

Environmental Expedition | Colombia → Ushuaia | 2016–2018When Kate Rawles set out to cycle from Colombia to the southern tip of South America, she...

Building alongside Ghana Bamboo Bikes: the Imagine Bamboo Summit, Birmingham

International Partnership | Birmingham | July 2022In July 2022, BBC attended the Image Bamboo Festival in Birmingham and collaborated with Ghana Bamboo Bikes to...

Six Hilton staff, six bamboo bikes: a team build at Hilton London Bankside

Hospitality Partnership | London | 2018–2020BBC taught Hilton Bankside staff to build bamboo bikes — bikes that then became part of the hotel's public...

Build to Bond: bikes built by fathers, ridden by their children

Prison Rehabilitation | HMP Lowdham Grange | 2025–ongoingHow a six-week bamboo bicycle building course is reconnecting incarcerated parents with their children — and earning...

The bamboo e-cargo trike: when the bike is the business

Gervase needed transport that could carry his mobile workbench to trade fairs and markets. He built a custom bamboo cargo trike. It didn't just...

A foldable bamboo wheelchair, built where it's needed

An estimated 100 million people globally need a wheelchair and don't have one. In 2019, BBC began applying its frame-building expertise to this problem.

Kenya: teaching the build, not shipping the bike

BBC spent time in Kenya teaching community members to build bamboo bicycles. The goal was not to produce frames — it was to leave...

From sustainable AI to the seafront: Manish rides his bamboo bike London to Brighton

Manish is the founder of a sustainable AI company. He built a bamboo gravel bike because carbon fibre contradicted everything his business stood for....

The UCL engineering students who put bamboo under load

Over three consecutive years, UCL Mechanical Engineering Masters students partnered with BBC to build increasingly ambitious bamboo bicycles — culminating in a fully electric...