Our New Digital Face

Marty has returned from Ghana.  We are in the beginning stages of funding a test run of 800 bikes.  We are entering a new stage in bamboo bike-producing game, and we have a re-vamped Facebook fan page to keep you posted on our progress and involved every step of the way.  Join us on Facebook to stay informed and contribute, and check out our updated website.

A taste of Marty Odlin's trip to Kumasi and the Millennium Village of Bonsaaso

Going for 800

To achieve our ambitious goal of making bamboo bikes in Africa at a scale that matches the need we know exists, we have to do something that has never been done before in Africa (or anywhere else) – we have to make large production runs of bamboo bikes. To date no one, not even the most prominent bike builders in the US, have produced more than a handful of these bikes.

Taken during Marty's recent trip to Kumasi and Bonsaaso

One of the outcomes of the trip Marty Odlin made to Ghana this year was a commitment from an investor to make a test production run of 800 bikes. This may seem like a modest number compared to the true need, yetit is the sort of test run that will allow us to determine where the issues lie in eventually reaching a much larger production.

In the US, we must come up with technologies that will permit this.  We must develop ways to quickly make the cuts and borings that allow metal parts like the rear dropouts and seat tube to be married to the bamboo sections. If processes like these are done fully by hand, the amount of time needed to construct each bike is large – and so we have to come up with ways to make bike construction go a lot faster. This also holds true for the way the bamboo is treated; the flame treater looks like the most promising way to maximize efficiency in the treating process, as it reduces the treating time from around 2 hours to less than 20 minutes for one frame.

In Ghana, we are looking first into spaces to get set up, and then we need to put our supply chain in place. We are looking for the moment at using metal parts from China, because at present this is the fastest and most economical option. We would like to start making some of the simpler parts in Africa soon – such as handlebars, seat tubes, etc. – and eventually make everything there on the ground. But for this run of 800 we still need to source from China.

Most important, we need to raise the funds for this next critical step. So far we have been operating on our initial seed funding and that is not going to work from now on. Many people have made very generous donations directly and through the purchase of T-shirts and jerseys. That has kept us going and is deeply appreciated, but the estimated cost of the 800 test run is around $120,000 including development costs, purchase of parts and the management of the work. We don’t have sources for this amount identified at present and are in search of donors and investors to help us achieve this next critical milestone in the Bamboo Bike Project.

The project has reached a very critical and exciting stage. If we can pass the 800 test, we should be able to get into serious production by next year – and then, our ultimate goal of helping to alleviate rural poverty in Africa through improved transportation will be that much closer.

Innovation in Bamboo Flame Treatment!

In partnership with students at Columbia University’s undergraduate School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Bamboo Bike Project brings you news of technological exciting advancements that are helping us construct stronger bamboo bikes more efficiently.

Costi Quffa, recent mechanical engineering graduate, was one of a team of students who designed a machine that automatically flame-treats bamboo, as part of a senior capstone project.  Interested in the Bamboo Bike Project, Costi got in touch with Marty and asked what kinds of engineering innovations could benefit the project.  When Costi discovered that current flame-treating processes were very time intensive and labor intensive (it takes 20 minutes to treat a piece of bike-length bamboo by hand, and there are seven bamboo rods in each bike), Costi had his angle.  He would create a mechanized form of bamboo heat treatment.

Bamboo Flame Treater

Costi’s bamboo treater is a robust prototype.  It employs a propane flame, and motors that can be solar powered.  When a piece of bamboo is placed in the machine, a motor on the bottom pushes a carriage carrying the flame back and forth along the length of the bamboo.  A motor on top rotates the piece of bamboo itself, ensuring that all areas of the bamboo section are evenly treated. The machine can make multiple passes over the bamboo if needed.  It takes this machine five minutes to treat a piece of bamboo approximately three feet in length.

Bamboo is not uniform, so treatment machines must be adaptable and able to work with many different sizes and diameters.  Accordingly, Costi’s heat treater has an adaptable carriage that allows users to alter the distance between flame and bamboo.  The machine can also be adjusted to treat all lengths and sizes of bamboo.

Bike treated with the new flame treater

Costi and his fellow engineers see the versatility of the flame-treater as giving it an application  beyond bamboo bikes to bamboo scaffolding, furniture, and other infrastructure.  Some are already investigating the humanitarian impacts of using this machine to strengthen bamboo structures used by refugees in settlements affected by cyclones/tsunamis.  What a fruitful partnership!

Bamboo Bikes in Kenya: Presentation Update!

In February, we brought you news of the student research team at Columbia University’s graduate School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) working to assess the feasibility of bringing bamboo bikes to Kisumu, Kenya. Kat Athanasiades, Michelle Eames, Riham Hussein, and Young Rhee will present their final report and business plan to the public this Thursday at 4:50pm in SIPA room 1512.  We sat down with Kat before the team’s big day, to learn more about their recent return trip to Kenya, the insights they gained, and some details of their final proposal to the UN Millennium Cities Initiative.

Learning about bamboo in Kenya

For two weeks in mid-March, this SIPA team traveled through Kisumu and the surrounding region collecting market data and information on bamboo infrastructure.  They collected information on the pricing costs of potential factory components, as well as detailed information on labor costs, import taxes, and industry fees.  They attempted to size the potential bamboo bicycle market, using the KPMG-authored Ghana study as a partial model.  They worked to determine who would be able to afford the cost of a bamboo bicycle (at the same time that they investigated ways to drive down the potential cost of a bamboo bike to significantly less than what is available now in Kisumu, by pricing with Chinese components), and they identified three principle markets for sturdy bamboo cargo bikes in Kenya: boda boda drivers, community health workers, and rural students and commuters (many of them women who travel daily to the urban market stalls they staff during the day).  The team brought back a good deal of demographic information that will also translate well into market information for the final study to be presented this week.

Bamboo in the sun

The team met with representatives of Kenyan professional organizations like the Boda Boda Association, giving these leaders the opportunity to test-ride bamboo bicycles that Kat and crew brought from New York.  They encountered nothing but receptive responses, and encouragement.  They left a good deal of excitement about bamboo bicycles in their wake!

The group also visited the Kenya Forest Research Institute, where they learned that the bamboo industry in Kenya is already in its primary stages of development!  Bamboo in Kenya is already being harvested and used to make a number of specialty crafts items ranging from tables and chairs to kitchenware, and is also burned in the form of bamboo charcoal.  Contacts at the African Bamboo Center in Kisumu say that this industry could likely supply enough bamboo to support a bamboo bike factory in the very near future!

Nashan, head of Boda Boda Association, on a Bamboo Bike

Nashan riding away

Come to the Columbia University School of International Affairs, room 1512, this Thursday at 4:50 to learn more about the intricacies of the business plan to be presented by Kat, Michelle, Riham, and Young.  We certainly look forward to it!

Tantalus Time Trial

The Tantalus Time Trial is the oldest running bicycle race in Hawaii, and takes place in Honolulu on the island of Oahu. For those who know the area, the race starts on Makiki Heights Drive, approximately 100 meters before the first hairpin turn. Racers climb to Tantalus Drive, turn right, and climb to the parking lot at the top of the hill (Just before Tantalus turns into Round Top Drive).

Katharina and Ron proudly displaying their Bamboo Bike Project jerseys

Two residents of Hawaii, Katharina Pahnke and Ron Ogomori entered the race as members of the Bamboo Bike Project.  Normally, when a company or organization sponsors a rider, they pay for the expenses of the rider.  In this case, what we have is reverse-sponsoring, where the riders pay for the jerseys, and then help promote the project by training and racing in our jersey.

 

Katharina checks out eventual winner Shannon Cutting, while she rounds one of the hairpins on Tantalus Drive

Both Katharina and Ron did well in their respective races.  Katharina did especially well in her first ever bicycle race, placing 2nd (with a finishing time under 26 minutes) behind a very experienced Shannon Cutting.

If you would like to share pictures of yourself in your Bamboo Bike Project jersey, please feel free to send them to us along with your story.

Bamboo Bike Project Clothing!

Bamboo Bike Project Clothing!

Support the Bamboo Bike Project by purchasing a t-shirt!  Show off your commitment to sustainability initiatives with a fashionable brown tee replete with blue Bamboo Bike Project logo:

T-Shirt Logo

Your purchase will directly fund our efforts to develop a bamboo bike-building factory in Ghana, with all proceeds going toward paying for raw materials.  Check out this shirt-wearer in action:

Marissa Wearing Shirt and Riding Bamboo Bike

Find out how you can buy a shirt here.  As always, you are also welcome to donate to our project online; all donations are tax deductible.

Marty Prepares for Ghana!

Marty Odlin, engineer extraordinaire for the Bamboo Bike Project and assistant director of the Columbia University Center for Sustainable Engineering, will be heading off to Ghana in the coming week!  Marty will join a team in Ghana comprised of potential investors, scientists, and engineers, as he oversees field tests that will be run on our prototype bicycles!

After receiving the bamboo bikes that we sent some weeks ago, our contacts in Ghana ran some preliminary market tests to gauge interest in the product.  The encouraging feedback they received has led them to begin the next stage of product development: product testing in the field, under the conditions and stresses that a bamboo bike would face when put to daily use by local residents.

Because the bamboo bike models being used by this Ghanaian team are prototypes, Marty decided it would be a good idea to be present at these field tests; better understanding the way these prototypes fare will enable him to refine the designs of future models.  The Bamboo Bike Project also hopes that Marty will be able to answer all possible questions that might arise concerning engineering and structural mechanics, as well as assess any problems should they arise.

Marty will be in close contact with us throughout his trip to Ghana so stay tuned for updates on his travels and his findings!

The Record

The Record of Columbia University has a nice story featuring the bamboo bike project and our own Marty Odlin.  The story gives a nice summary of the genesis of the project, what’s been accomplished, and where we hope to take it.  Check it out.

 

Marty Odlin shows off prototypes of bamboo bikes.

The Importance of Scale

All work done to better the state of our world is admirable. But we at the Bamboo Bike Project maintain: to truly make an impact, good work has to be done on a large scale. We, and others, have proven that it is possible to build bamboo bikes that work well – and they are indeed as good if not better than bikes made with frames of other materials. Yet validation of our prototype does not explain how we get from one good bamboo bike to their large-scale production, and it is with large-scale production that we will see the success of this project.

It is very hard to estimate the number of bicycles there are in Sub-Saharan Africa. Certainly there are millions. There are 550 million people in that region; if even a tenth of them rode bikes, that’s 55 million bicycles. If one hundredth of the population rode bikes, that’s still 5.5 million bikes. Bikes are sold everywhere, their images are everywhere, and bike stores of all shapes and sizes are everywhere. What is an appropriate level of production? It is certainly a question we are hard at work to answer.

While we could encourage the growth of roadside or village level bicycle building, that approach could never meet a need at a level anywhere approaching 5-50 million bikes. That strategy would likely just increase the fortunes of a few roadside bicycle builders, and the transportation situation would remain unchanged. These local shops cannot produce goods at a rate that factories can, nor can they produce to similar scales. We must not fall into the trap of helping to start yet another small business that will do little but create a few interesting bikes, do nothing for poverty in rural areas and nothing for the economies of those countries that would benefit from bike manufacturing.

Thus, we have come to the conclusion that factory-style bamboo bike production is necessary. That doesn’t mean the equivalent of a vast Trek factory with thousands of employees, but it does mean a mode of production where both economies of scale can be created and a group of workers can be trained to perform skilled tasks in a coordinated and efficient way. In any factory, even small ones, bikes can be seen in all stages of production from the cutting of tubes, to initial assembly to finishing. Workers are trained to be skilled at tasks in different stages of production. Shipping is more efficient, as the supply chain can be managed from a central location. The need for these bikes is highly distributed, yet that does not imply that their production should be. There is absolutely an economy of scale in building bamboo bikes in a factory-like setting.

Currently, we are focusing on facilitating factory-scale production in the Millennium Cities of Kumasi, Ghana and Kisumu, Keyna. These are planned production sites that will both provide bikes to urban markets and do so at prices affordable enough to reach the rural poor. Kumasi and Kisumu are ideal locations for producing bikes and distributing them to areas where they are most needed. T-shirts and sunglasses for tourists can do well on the roadside, but bikes to help the poor need a factory.

lone bamboo bundle

Bamboo Bikes in Kenya? A New Study Underway

A student research team at Columbia University’s graduate School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) has partnered with the UN Millennium Cities Initiative, to assess the feasibility of growing a bamboo bike-building industry in Kisumu, Kenya!

We recently sat down with Kat Athanasiades, Michelle Eames, Riham Hussein, and Young Rhee, who began work on a feasibility study and business plan this past November. This study, which they are now close to completing, is a capstone project that fulfills a program requirement within the school’s international and economic development concentration. The team has recently returned from an exploratory visit to Kenya, and had some interesting things to share about the potential for a Kisumu arm of the Bamboo Bike Project.

A boda boda operator and his customer

Kisumu, they explained, is an area rich in both bamboo and imported Chinese bicycles. Not only are bikes a primary means of personal transportation for many local Kenyans, but Kisumu also lays claim to a massive boda boda taxi industry (boda bodas are essentially bicycle taxis). Kat, Michelle, Riham, and Young are exploring the possibility of phasing out the heavy metal bikes currently used by boda boda drivers with stronger, locally made bamboo ones. “When we met with the heads of the Boda Boda Association,” Kat explained, “they indicated that bamboo bikes would sell if they were perceived as being stronger and more attractive than what is there now.” And when local metal bikes register a weight of over 48 pounds (as Kat discovered when she weighed one by the side of the road), it’s easy to communicate the advantages of using a lightweight, well-made bamboo cargo bike. A bamboo bicycle would weigh about half as much, with a tensile strength greater than steel. “There is also great pride to be had in local construction,” Michelle continued, “especially in business ownership by ethnic Kenyans.”

boda boda businessmen

The bamboo industry is negligible in Kenya at the moment, even though bamboo is an abundant, self-replenishing resource. Assuming that it would be possible to work with Kenyan officials to lift existing restrictions on bamboo harvesting, this SIPA group is evaluating the effectiveness of production models that range from small-scale farming with a central factory (mimicking the way in which sugar cane is currently grown and harvested) to a plantation farming model comprised of a factory with radial farming around it. As a development project, their feasibility study involves an analysis of long-term sustainability and possibilities for the bamboo industry in general, in addition to the specific ways in which bamboo might be used to make bicycles.

Kat, Michelle, Riham, and Young will present their final report and potential business plan in March 2009 in Kisumu and in April 2009 in New York. The Millennium Cities will publish this report in its working paper series, and we will post a link to the report on this blog when it becomes available. Following its publication, the Bamboo Bike Project and Millennium Cities Initiative can further dialogue with Kenyan business leaders, government officials, and residents of Kisumu about the possibilities of bamboo harvesting and bike production for local socioeconomic growth.

Kat and Michelle with a sign for the Millennium Villages