Having been enamored with classic steel frames for so long, I have always held in reservation my opinion of ‘alternative’ frame materials. But the latest offering from Australia’s Bamboo Bikes has swayed my imagination with ideas of how I’d build up my own…
This is the second frame by Mik Efford, manufactured under Cognitive Cycle’s Bamboo Bikes brand. The tubes are Australian-grown Aurea bamboo; there are steel inserts for the bottom bracket shell, seat tube and head tube.
Mik has had custom dropouts milled, which can cater for a fixed, single speed and multi-geared arrangements. There’s also rack mounts, should you decide to truly embark upon a journey to get back to nature. At 2.4kg, the frame isn’t a weight weenie, but it’s certainly not a tank either.
In fact, now that Mik has established a headway into creating tidy, desirable frames with clean lines (and a similar silhouette to modern frames completely constructed from carbon fiber), I’m certain we’ll be lighter and competitive frames in the future. The possibilities are endless.
You can follow the progress of this new industry on the Bamboo Bikes blog, and for the skeptics, you can read about the advantages of bamboo on Mik’s site.
