The Independent: Build your own bike with the Bamboo Bicycle Club

A wooden bike you have to build yourself? Will Coldwell signs up with the Bamboo Bicycle Club for The Independent.

It's 8am on a Saturday morning and I'm standing in a freezing cold warehouse in Hackney Wick, London holding a hacksaw. In front of me is a sheet of paper covered in angles and equations. Piled around the room are stacks of bamboo. By the end of the weekend, I'm meant to have turned some of it into a bicycle frame. I think of the last time I did woodwork and my fingers go numb.

I'm at the Bamboo Bicycle Club, the country's only bamboo bike building course. Founded a year ago by friends James Marr and Ian McMillan, they have been giving up their weekends to help people bring their bamboo bike dreams to fruition.

Bamboo, it transpires, is not as rickety as you may think. With a higher in-tension strength than steel, natural resistance to the environment and six times more dampening than carbon, the fibrous tubes provide a strong yet comfortable ride.

The custom-build element of bamboo bicycles is central to what makes them so appealing. What was previously a luxury reserved for those with a certificate in welding or a very big budget is suddenly accessible to anyone capable of using a saw.

Joining me in the workshop are three others. Ed Herbert, 26, a software developer from Cambridge found out about the workshop just six days previously and signed up immediately. He chose to build a touring bike to take him on a 1,000 mile cycle ride across France.

"It's really interesting understanding more about the frame itself, how the angles of the tubes can make so much difference. I've learnt much more about the bicycle and what an amazing thing it is."

— Neil Cummings, Lecturer at Chelsea College of Art

For Tom Brand, 26, an investment accountant from London, this will be the first bike he's owned.

"Riding it for the first time is going to be so different to riding one I bought from a shop. With that you just think, I just spent a load of money. With this, I think, 'I made something'."

— Tom Brand, Investment Accountant

On Sunday morning we return to the workshop bright and early to complete the final process; binding. After a shaky start, we begin to tightly wrap each joint on the frame with hemp soaked in an epoxy resin.

While we saunter to the pub to wait for it to dry, I take the opportunity to test ride Ian's bike. Once I get over the self-conscious delight of the fact that it's made out of bamboo, it becomes apparent why they love it so much. It feels just as capable as any bike, but softer, more relaxed.

Originally published: The Independent, 21 March 2013
Author: Will Coldwell
Original article: Read on The Independent