A group of builders with their finished bamboo bikes and build plans
Our story

it started with one frame and a stubborn idea.

That anyone — given the right tools and a bit of belief — can build a bicycle. Today, that idea is changing lives.
The idea

we believe building things is powerful.

In 2012, design engineers James Marr and Ian McMillan opened a small workshop in Hackney with a single goal: prove that anyone can build a bicycle frame. They started with bamboo — a fast-growing grass you can shape with hand tools.

What began as a maker's hobby became something bigger. Today the same craft runs inside prisons, schools and community workshops — turning a bike into a route to skills, confidence and a second chance.

If we want people to choose sustainable options, we need to offer something better than what polluting products can be.

James Marr, Founder
James Marr drilling a bamboo tube held in a jig, in the Bamboo Bicycle Club workshop
James Marr at the bench — he still teaches every cohort.
The journey

fourteen years, one through-line.

Every chapter widened who gets to build — and the mission grew naturally out of the craft, not bolted on beside it.

2012

a workshop in hackney

Design engineers James Marr and Ian McMillan open the UK's first bamboo bike workshop. The Guardian covers it. They never sell a finished bicycle — they teach people to build their own.

The first Bamboo Bicycle Club workshop, frames on the bench and the club logo painted on the wall
2014

the kits travel

Within two years, home-build kits are shipping across Europe and beyond — and the club takes to the show floor, exhibiting at Bespoked, the UK handmade bicycle show, then riding RideLondon FreeCycle from Leadenhall in the City the following summer.

2015

the design museum, and a world first

Cycle Revolution exhibits a BBC build — and the world's first bamboo frame with 3D-printed lugs is built live with Oxford Brookes: eight hours, in front of 70,000 people.

2016

grown for the ride

The Eden Project grows and cuts 30 canes from its own garden for an expedition bike.

2017

the company forms

Bamboo Bicycle Club London Ltd is incorporated.

2018

kevin mccloud's green heroes

Selected at Grand Designs Live as one of Kevin McCloud’s Green Heroes for sustainable design.

2019

the method travels

A skills-transfer programme runs in Kenya.

2021

the cycling world takes a proper look

GCN puts a bamboo frame through its paces on camera in “Are Bamboo Bikes Actually Any Good?”.

2023

8,288 miles, no failures

Kate Rawles rides Colombia to Tierra del Fuego on a frame she built with us. Eight months, no frame failure.

2024

behind the wall, and in paris

A governor asks for accreditation. James builds OCN London Level 2 — Workshop Skills and Sustainable Manufacturing — and a frame-building workshop opens behind the wall. BBC work shows at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris; a partnership launches in Rwanda.

The frame-building workshop inside HMP Lowdham Grange — benches and wall-mounted jigs, empty
2025

the year the work was recognised

Bamboo Mobility Project CIC is incorporated in February. The Financial Times profiles the prison programme; Investec’s Beyond Business selects BBC from 148 applicants with £24,000; the National Lottery’s Pedal Forward adds £18,000. Lord Timpson publicly recognises the work.

Now

one engine for change

Five prison sites and a schools programme, funded by the same workshop that teaches anyone to build a bike.

Inside the bamboo bicycle workshop
How we're built

a shop and a mission, one engine.

We're a Community Interest Company — not a charity with a gift shop. The money flows in one loop.

Member 01
You build a bike.
A frame kit from £375, built by the person who rides it. We have never sold a finished bicycle.
Member 02
The margin funds a place.
Surplus goes to accredited skills courses in prisons and schools.
Member 03 · bonded
Somebody gets a way forward.
90%+ of learners complete the course. The bike they build goes to their own child.

Bamboo Mobility Project CIC · Reg 16257348

What we stand for

three things we won't compromise.

A loaded bamboo touring bike parked beside a waymarker on open moorland
01

craft over consumption

A bike you build yourself is a bike you never throw away. We teach making, not buying.

Architect Taro Tsuruta has ridden the frame he built for ten years. It is still his daily bike.

Cut and mitred bamboo tubes on a workbench beside a carpenter pencil
02

grown, not mined

Bamboo regrows in 3–5 years and recycles fully. Sustainability is the material, not the marketing.

Our frames were tested to BS ISO 22157 at Swansea University. The material is a grass — cut it, and it regrows from the same root.

Gloved hands wrapping and binding a bamboo frame joint on the workbench
03

open to everyone

From weekend workshops to prisons and schools, our goal is to put making within reach of people who'd never otherwise get the chance.

Jon had the use of one hand. We adapted every step so the build stayed in his hands rather than ours — he left with a frame he had built himself.

Real people, real builds

every bike is somebody's story.

From first-time makers to 8,000-mile expeditions — a few of the people who've built with us.

Read more stories →
Recognised by

…and featured in 40+ publications — see all coverage →

recognition & exhibitions
4,000+
people have built a bike
since 2012
90%+
prison course completion
BBC programme records
3,500+
frames built
since 2012
45
countries reached
kits shipped worldwide
Join in

be part of the next chapter.

Build a bike, bring a programme to your institution, or back the mission.

Book a build →See our impact
where we've reached

45 countries, one kit at a time.

Every country a Bamboo Bicycle Club kit has reached since 2012 — and the programmes we run at home.

World map with every country a Bamboo Bicycle Club kit has reached shaded green
  • 45 countries reached
  • 10 schools & universities
  • 4 active prison sites
  • 3 international hubs
✱ every country our kits have reached since 2012 — straight from our customer records. home in dark green.
see the impact in full