Sunday is a more relaxed day of building the lugs.
Each length has been prechecked for quality, so you get to indulge in frame aesthetics: plain bamboo, black or mottled. No problem – just get another tube and have another go. For the rest of us, Ian reassures that everyone messes up once or twice. The self-build is half the attraction for most participants it may be no coincidence that all those on this course were engineers. Yet James and Ian buzz cheerfully between workbenches, supervising every cut, triple-checking every joint, and will take over if a task seems insurmountable. Accurate mitring for a clean joint can be tricky, for example. With its jigs and power tools and design plans, the course is a leap of faith for someone whose idea of DIY is flatpack assembly. Chromoly tubes are inserted for the handlebars, forks and seatpost and stainless steel dropouts are slotted into the chainstays.
#BIKE WORKSHOP DESIGN HOW TO#
On day one, the boys show you how to select bamboo for strength – not only its diameter but that proposed cuts will fall between nodes – and how to mitre joints before tubes are epoxied lightly in place on the jig: first the front triangle composed of 40mm diameter bamboo then the thinner, more fiddly seat and chain stays. The question for me, a king of the bodged job, was about quality.
#BIKE WORKSHOP DESIGN PLUS#
The £389 price of their monthly course buys you a computer-designed custom frame (road or mountain bike) plus a fun weekend of bike-building. So, Bamboo Bike Club was born – more community than company since it launched in September, and still a project between full-time jobs. We wanted to share the joy of making something the craft of creating something unique and sustainable," James explains. "We realised we didn't want just to sell frames. Only after they had refined two years' research into a marketable product – James now tosses out phrases like "close-noded thick-wall tubes" while talking about bamboo – did they realise they were on the wrong track. Their idea was to establish a boutique bamboo bike manufacturer. Factor in £550 more to make it road-ready.Ĭost and the design challenge led engineers James Marr and Ian McMillan to spend years cooped up in a shed in Brecon, Wales. The entry-level Bamboo Bikes frame will set you back £1,199. The problem for most cyclists is the price. Names like Californian manufacturer Calfee Design or Yorkshire's Bamboo Bikes have revived a construction method pioneered as early as 1894.
Woodwork class was never like this.īamboo is one of the most interesting trends to emerge in bike construction.
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