A company in London have managed to 3D print a bike using an interesting sustainable material as the frame – bamboo!

Aptly named, The Bamboo Bicycle Club teamed up with the Design Museum in London in order to undertake a pioneering live challenge. All they had to do was to design, print and test ride a bamboo-framed bike, which doesn’t sound simple!

The Bamboo Bicycle Club’s offers workshops on how to build, fit and finish bamboo frames.  Their impressively innovative creation may provide an interesting new approach to how we build bikes which also have a useful focus on sustainable materials.

It was co-founder James Marr who was lucky enough to have the first test ride. Marr said to the Evening Standard:

“We believe it could create a really good, sustainable future for bicycles. We have used a 3D printer that is quite hi-tech but we have also used simple tools and simple equipment. We have cut the bamboo using a handsaw which means anyone can walk in and do what we have just done very simply.”

3D Printed Bamboo Bikes: How They are Made

The team worked with both the University of West London as well as Oxford Brookes University in order to create the bike from scratch.

This project was actually part of the Cycle Revolution exhibition at the Design Museum and the team had big dreams for their bike. Marr said:

At Bamboo Bicycle Club, we believe in an open source, do it yourself attitude and we believe in the future – that’s become more and more important. People will be able to create their own bikes at home and we would like that to be a sustainable way.

His vision is for people to be able to print out lugs (or joints) and then connect them using bamboo which has been grown locally – either in your park or garden.

The team managed to finish the whole process in eight hours, as well as ride it – proving the bamboo bike does actually work too.

What do you think about this bike? Would you be happy to ride a 3D printed bamboo bike through London? Let us know in the comments.