Bamma bicycles - a mutual bamboo frame project between BME and Fox Gao March 2011
When I first thought of using bamboo to construct a mountain bike, it was like a shot in the dark.
I knew it should be strong enough -on paper- but what did I really know about bamboo? The answer was not much.
As I learned more about the material, I had more and more questions about its amazing qualities.
As my amazement grew so did the number of ideas I had about how it could be used for different cycling applications.
I started to wonder how cheap and easy it could be to make a bike from natural materials. I was sure that low income
people from all over the world could benefit from this, while people in the developed world might also want a more organic bicycle.
In Chinese culture bamboo represents "gentle, principled and modest". Well-educated people (in ancient China that means the nobles or the officers), all like to use bamboo to make some useful things, like the Chinese writing brush, musical instruments etc., it is a high class material.
To design something meant that I needed to know more about the bamboo plant, its benefits, limitations,
and the traditional users that have made it such a popular and durable material.
That's how I met Fox Gao from China; once the introduction was made things rolled quickly. As we talked, it became
clear that Fox had a vast store of knowledge about bamboo, construction, curing, uses etc. His native knowledge is awesome,
and as I further developed my second generation of bamboo frames with carbon joints from a prototype into a workable product,
the Bamma bike, a bamboo frame with hemp joints, was born… as a younger sibling.
In the form of a low cost bike, bamboo's best characteristics find their most natural expression. Using 98% organic materials (bamboo and hemp), the Bamma bike represents many years of my work with composites, laminated structures, as well a bamboo, paired with Fox's 15 years of work, specializing in the sourcing and development of bamboo technologies. Together we have developed the Bamma bicycle.
In line with building a more eco-friendly bike, Fox wanted the bike to also be socially friendly. Thus, Fox's factory is open to both the elderly and handicapped in order to offer them dignity through work.
For Bamma bikes, only carefully selected and cured bamboo materials are used, with primary attention paid to a standardized construction process. The quality of Bamma frames was recently proven by passing fatigue tests according the EN 14764 standard for city and trekking bicycles.
You can find more information about Bamma frames at www.bammabicycle.com. It is also possible to make custom frames according your requirements. If you have any further interest or questions, please contact Fox at foxgao{at}chinakinsun.com or me.