At the Bamboo Bicycle Club, we don’t just sell bikes; we help people build them. Founded by James Marr in the creative heart of East London, our club has evolved into a vibrant community of cycling enthusiasts and DIY advocates. We're a movement that celebrates the spirit of innovation and sustainability in cycling. We operate workshops across Europe and ship our kits worldwide.
We believe that cycling can be more than just a mode of transportation; creating something with your own hands and then riding it offers a unique experience like no other. Building anything gives you a distinctive experience, an understanding of materials, functionality, and an appreciation for your own skills.
We started using bamboo to create bikes as it is an interesting engineering material that is underutilized. With over 1,500 species, it can be grown almost anywhere in the world, making it both accessible and sustainable for builders everywhere. It also has many qualities that make it ideal for bicycle construction; it naturally forms aerodynamic tubes in varied diameters, has a high weight-to-strength ratio, and possesses unique vibration-dampening characteristics. Bamboo also has a negative carbon footprint, as it absorbs 30% more CO2 than traditional timber, making it one of the key materials in climate change mitigation. However, bamboo can be difficult to join due to its wall thickness and structure.
Our community stretches across the world. We have shipped our kits to 42 different countries and collaborated with communities, creating pop-up workshops in many countries outside of the UK. We have also conducted team-building sessions and talks across Europe. We have an active community on social media with help forums for builders and a Strava ride group.
We invest the majority of our profits into innovation and prototyping. We support university students and research projects. We've worked with tmany universities to better understand how bamboo performs in different environments, how to create connections for bamboo, and developing e-bikes with motors integrated into the bamboo. Our projects include cargo bikes for agricultural projects in Africa, bamboo structure design, developing wheelchairs using bamboo, and we worked with the UN to develop communication masks for remote communities. We’re always happy to support projects and offer our advice for free, so get in touch.
If you're interested in building a bike, our advice would be to think about it or get in touch to plan it. The better the plan, the better the bike. We’ve helped thousands of people, so get in touch if you have a unique custom build or if you would like to try our easy-build lugged kits. One thing we can confidently say is it’s a unique experience and creates a new interaction every time you ride, with a common question: "Is that bamboo? Where did you get it from?" It’s always great to say, "I built it!"
