Kevin McCloud named us one of his Green Heroes
In 2018, Bamboo Bicycle Club was chosen as one of Kevin McCloud's Green Heroes at Grand Designs Live — the showcase of sustainable design that the Grand Designs presenter personally curates each year.
The context
Each year McCloud hand-picks a small group of makers and products that, to his eye, show real innovation in sustainable design — and puts them in front of the Grand Designs Live audience. Getting in is his call, not an open application, which is part of why the recognition carries weight with design, architecture and construction audiences.
What we do
We are not a bike shop. We teach people to build their own bamboo bicycle frame — by hand, with hand tools — over a two- or three-day course at our East London workshop, or from a kit at home. Founders James and Ian started it as two engineers who wanted to build their own bamboo bikes and ended up building a community of people doing the same.
What Kevin McCloud said
"Bamboo is officially the fastest growing plant in the world, which should make these the fastest bicycles in the world: light, hollow-tube construction, supremely engineered by nature. But they are not too fast to buy. You have to join the club and build one yourself."
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— Kevin McCloud
Why it matters
It is one thing to say our work is sustainable; it is another for someone who has spent a career championing sustainable building to point at it and say so. That endorsement still does work for us with corporate and education partners who care about where their materials come from.
Links
- Grand Designs Live: https://granddesignslive.com