Bamboo Bicycles: Make Your Ride Even More Eco-Friendly
by SARAH NELSON, Contributing Writer
Everyone knows that swapping out your gas-powered wheels for a bicycle is an easy way to go green. However, the manufacturing and disposal of your standard aluminum bicycle – not so green. It kind of cancels out your eco-conscious efforts when your old bike ends up in a landfill.
Organic Bikes is a line of green bicycles created by the Wisconsin bike retailer Wheels and Sprocket. The company’s eco-friendly bikes are made of bamboo. For someone who makes a habit of testing the limits of gravity, this sounds a little bit like an accident waiting to happen, but these bike are just as solid as their aluminum counterparts. Bamboo bikes are strong and lightweight, the perfect combo!
In addition to the bamboo, Organic Bikes are crafted from a small amount of recycled aluminum alloy – the same stuff soda cans are made out of. The recycled aluminum only requires five-percent of the energy it takes to create new aluminum making it ultra-eco friendly. Organic bikes use far less aluminum alloy than a regular bicycle and substitute bamboo for the majority of the tubing on the bike’s frame. Bamboo is a rapidly renewable resource, so its environmental impact is low compared to metals, slow growing woods or other materials. Plus, bamboo materials are bio-degradable, so if you’re like me and break things that should be indestructible, you won’t be clogging a landfill like old metal bikes do.
If you want to get really crazy with your endeavors in green-biking, check out the fully recyclable card-board bike. You can ride it all summer long, and for about thirty bucks (£15) you can recycle it when it wears out and buy a new one for next year.
The first Organic Bike to hit retail and online stores this December will be the Dylan, a commuter bike, followed by the Caleb, a road bike, in early 2010.
Photo by Organic Bikes.
- Posted by Causecast
Related causes: Environment
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Neiman Marcus should have these organic bikes on the cover of their holiday catalog, as this is the new artisan luxury, and signals the emergence of #greenfitness.
waterproof and doesn't warp in the sun = my christmas present.