(Update: June 24, 2007 — Treehugger writes about Calfee bikes. LA Times headline — “Bamboo bike is quite the offshoot.”)
I quickly consulted the calendar when I saw the item on the E-Composites website that a bicycle frame-maker was using bamboo. I confirmed it wasn't April Fool's Day.
The southern California high-performance bike frame-maker Calfee Design is using bamboo in one of its designs. The company is owned by Craig Calfee, whose early creations under the Carbonframes brand were used by Greg LeMond and Team Z in Tour de France.
Calfee specializes in light, strong carbon fiber frames. It built the first bamboo bike in 1996 as a pubicity stunt, but “the feedback was too good to ignore.”
“This is a serious bike. It is appropriate for everyday use and for racing,” says the Calfee website. The bike made from black bamboo dampens vibration better than carbon fiber, weighs about 4 pounds but has good stiffness and is very tough. Because of the nature of bamboo, the frame can't be painted and requires occasional wiping down with furniture polish.
The bamboo frame price runs between $2,600 and $3,100, depending on the model.
Still, is this for real? Yes. Apparently there is a growing worldwide shortage of carbon fiber, CyclingNews reported back in May:
“… there's a global shortage of carbon fibre, with composites factories all over the world having to cope with rationing of the fibres that go into making carbon fibre. This is due to the expansion of the Chinese economy, the building of the Airbus A380 and Boeing's 7E7 Dreamliner, top-secret US air force projects, and the proliferation of windfarms across Europe. Every windfarm blade of 50m or more is made of carbon fibre. Shorter blades can make do with cheaper, heavier glass fibre.”
The shortage is expected to cause prices to rise in the bicycle industry for about two years.
E-Composites reports the shortage doesn't affect just high-performance bicycles; also kayak paddles, hockey sticks, fishing poles.
Could bamboo replace other bike frame materials? It is very strong, according to Wikipedia, and is used for housing, scaffolding and bridges in Asia.
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