Journal MightyMait's Journal: Bamboo Bikes for Africa 1
Here's a fascinating melding of traditional and new technologies--bamboo bicycles.
From: Columbia Spectator
From: Columbia Spectator
Who would have thought that inside the Zen essence of bamboo lay the potential to help a poverty-stricken continent create bicycles?
David Ho, a research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, is currently working with his colleague, John Mutter, on a project to start a bamboo bicycle-making industry in Africa to provide transportation for local residents. Ho first received the idea from Craig Calfee, a bicycle builder in California who 11 years ago built a bicycle with a bamboo frame for publicity.
I've seen the original (Score:2)
I've been to Calfee and seen the original bicycle. Apparently there's not much difference in theory between making a carbon fiber bicycle and making one out of bamboo. Prototype CF bicycles are made by scalloping the ends of tubes with an upright rotary grinder, then you epoxy them together just to hold (with the putty type) and proceed to wrap them up in carbon fiber twine, painting with epoxy as you wrap. The end result is only a couple ounces heavier than the actual finished product, which uses CAD/CAM-b