Building Bamboo Bikes — and Brighter Futures — at HMP Lowdham Grange
Bamboo Bike Building: Transforming Lives at Lowdham Grange Prison HMP Lowdham Grange has partnered with Bamboo Bicycle Club to launch an innovative rehabilitation program teaching inmates to build eco-friendly bamboo bicycles. This groundbreaking initiative...
The context
At HMP Lowdham Grange, a Category B men's training prison in Nottinghamshire, Makers learn to build a complete bicycle from raw bamboo. It is the first prison where Bamboo Bicycle Club delivered this work — the place that proved the idea works, and the model every site since has been built on.
What we do
Since late 2024 we have run a six-week course in a dedicated on-site workshop:
- 12 Makers per cohort, 18 hours a week
- A clear progression from the first basic joint to a finished frame
- Peer mentors, trained from earlier cohorts, supporting the next group
- A Build to Bond strand running alongside, focused on rebuilding family connection
The course is accredited by OCN London at Level 1 and Level 2 in Sustainable Manufacturing — a recognised qualification Makers can carry with them.
The outcome
The programme is oversubscribed: more Makers want a place than the workshop can take. Cohorts have completed, peer mentors have stepped up to teach the next intake, and the workshop has become a settled, working part of the prison. Lowdham Grange is where Build to Bond began, and the proof of concept for everything that followed.
In James's words
"Training people in the building of frames and the mechanics of bikes, so they can build themselves a brighter future." — James Marr, founder, Bamboo Bicycle Club
"The whole goal of Bamboo Bicycle Club is to make bike-building accessible to everyone." — James Marr (Inside Time)
Why it matters
A bamboo frame is something you can shape with simple hand tools and real patience — and at the end of it, you are holding something you made. For the Makers at Lowdham Grange, that is a skill, a recognised qualification, and, through Build to Bond, a way to reconnect with family. Across our work we have trained 4,000+ people in 36+ countries since 2012; this is where that work began behind the wall.
Links
- Inside Time: making bike-building accessible to everyone in prisons — https://insidetime.org/comment/bamboozling-way-to-build-bikes/
- Financial Times feature — https://www.ft.com/content/6ebe2eba-b832-4289-9924-2e9f948d5f98
Book a build
Build your own bamboo bike — in a London workshop or from a kit shipped to your door. No experience needed.
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