Bamboo Bikes – Do They Make Sense?
The latest product to incorporate everyone’s favourite eco-friendly material is bicycles.
The creator is Craig Calfee, owner of Calfee Design which creates high-performance carbon fibre bikes. But he intends to make affordable bicycles out of bamboo for a very different market: the poor in Africa and Asia. This allows them to get around more easily and hopefully increase employment opportunities.
The intention is honourable, but I’m really not sure it will work out:
Firstly, the bikes are intended to be handmade. This requires skill, which means training, and that costs money.
Secondly, only the frame is made of bamboo. The rest of the bicycle, such as the gears, wheels, chains, pedals, seats and handle bars are made from the usual plastic and metal.
Thirdly, they are not really cheaper than conventional bikes. According to the price list on Calfee’s web site, a bamboo bike designed for professional racing starts from USD2,695. Compare that to his conventional racing bikes which start from only USD1,495.
Why is it so much more expensive? A 80% premium was charged because these bamboo bikes are hand-made and limited production pieces.
But what has that got to do with making bikes more accessible to the poor?
Instead of bamboo bikes, I’ve got a better suggestion: Ship unwanted used bicycles over.
Re-using and helping the poor. Now that’s killing two birds with one stone.
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Matt said,
March 25, 2009 at 10:27 am
always nice to see something written without research! Shipping just parts means more ‘full’ bikes can be built in Ghana, the high cost of Calfees bikes is due to the labour used to make them for long term use etc… whereas there is a large quantity of bamboo in the areas he is intending his ‘idea’ to be utiliesed…. He has already been over and ‘taught’ how to build the bikes, and left those people to train the rest….
So don’t ‘Ship unwanted used bicycles over’ that’s a waste of fuel and money, ship parts, and let them build from materials available… now that’s killing two birds with one stone..
Hun Boon said,
March 25, 2009 at 10:45 am
Hi Matt, thanks for your comment.
I’m still not convinced it’s the best idea to construct the bike from scratch. After building the frame from bamboo, they still need the expertise to assemble all the components.
And where will the parts come from? Stripped out from old bikes anyway. Why not just ship the entire bike over? No doubt the shipping cost is higher, but you save on the stripping and re-assembly costs.
If the intention is to make bikes more widely available to the poor and improve their transportation, then I feel shipping unwanted conventional bikes over is still the better option.
Appreciate your thoughts on this.
Linda tom said,
April 9, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Hi Hun Boon,
This is what I understand about the project – Calfee has been giving intensive training to the Africans and he hopes to create a home-grown bike industry. The metal parts will come from China; shipping costs from there will be much lower compared to the US.
You might think of the old saying: “Don’t give them fish but teach them how to catch the fish.” Much better in the long run, don’t you think?
Hun Boon said,
April 9, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Hi Linda,
Thanks for dropping by!
Firstly, I have to qualify that this article was written almost 2 years ago and I’ve not been following his progress since then.
Yes I would agree that it is best to develop their own bike industry. I’m just not convinced that using bamboo for the frames is the best or cheapest way forward.
A part of me was also put off by how costly his custom built bamboo bikes were, so that might have coloured my perceptions.
If anyone knows how this bamboo bike project is working out so far, would appreciate some links to the relevant articles.
Cheers!
Linda Tom said,
April 10, 2009 at 11:39 am
Hi Hun Boon,
Here’s the latest update on the African bike project:
http://www.calfeedesign.com/BambooOverview.htm
The bikes would cost around US$150.
Cheers,
Linda
Hun Boon said,
April 10, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Hi Linda,
Thanks for the link.
Hmm..USD150 for a bike still sounds very expensive, especially for a low-income country.
Even here in Singapore, I could easily buy a brand new bicycle for less than USD50.
So if the intention is to make bicycles widely available in the developing world, then there is a lot of work ahead of them.
Thanks for your comments.