How can you make a green form of transportation even greener? Bryan McClelland may have the answer: bamboo bikes.
McClelland has created the BamBike, a bicycle made out of bamboo. The bicycles are made in Manila, Phillipines, which Reuters reports is one of the most polluted capitals in the world. The bikes, costing around $500, are built by local skilled laborers, and the company advertises that as "a company that is interested in helping out people and the planet," their bicycles are made with fair-trade labor.
The BamBike frame is made out of cut and dried bamboo lumber and wrapped with Manila hemp fibers. According to McClelland, bamboo is "one of the greenest building materials on earth, so bicycles built out of bamboo are, more or less, the greenest way to get around."
Not everyone has jumped on the bamboo bandwagon. Some locals are skeptical of the bike's durability, although McClelland claims that compared to metal, bamboo has the same tensile strength and a higher strength to weight ratio.
What do you think? Would you ride a bamboo bike?
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