The future is green
Bamboo frames are nothing new – quite the opposite – but Bristol-based Netham Bamboo Bikes is doing something unique with them
There are so many clichéd objections around bamboo bikes it’s a cliché to list them, but the idea that a doe-eyed Chinese bear might somehow eat one is too wonderfully daft not to mention. After all, with the advent of disc brakes there is no way it could ingest the rotors.
For all the worries about strength, weight, waterproofing and fire (we’ve heard that one too), there’s a wealth of evidence backing bamboo as a great material for a bike. And that’s why brother and sister team Andy Pears and Laura Niblett founded Netham Bamboo Bikes in Bristol.
‘We are the first business to offer bamboo bikes exclusively in the UK,’ says Niblett. ‘The Bamboo Bicycle Club in London is build-your-own, and Myboo is a German company. At the moment we offer three models, one of them being this adventure road. The frame is built by our partners overseas and the bike is assembled in our workshop in Bristol. Due to the material and process, each bike is unique and ultimately very environmentally friendly.’ The problem with bikes is that as green as they are in transport terms, what most people have in the shed isn’t exactly carbon neutral. As Cyclist reported back in issue 19, a
1kg carbon fibre frame is responsible for about 600g of CO2 emissions in material alone, then add in production and shipping and it takes 1,120km of pedalling to offset your average carbon frame. Bamboo, by contrast, actually absorbs carbon as it grows. Countless respected studies conclude bamboo products are generally carbon neutral, if not carbon negative, and that includes accounting for processing and shipping, even where a whole bike is concerned.
Behind the eco curtain
‘We do all the design work in Bristol, then we work with two manufacturers, one in Ghana and one in Bali, who make the bikes,’ says Pears. ‘Some bamboo used in other applications is intensively farmed and chemically treated, but what we use is sustainably farmed and heat dried in summer, a bit like kiln drying.
‘Both partners’ businesses help their local communities by creating
employment and training skills. The place in Bali – East Bali Bamboo Bikes – was started by a couple of engineers who used to work for major airlines then returned home to set up the business. They source their bamboo from nearby. Ecoride, in Ghana, is its own plantation that has a factory on the side.’
That last bit sounds strangely familiar – issue 101 featured a Cinelli-built frame that used tubing sourced from its sister firm, Columbus, next door. And another thing that might surprise in its familiarity is the way Netham bikes are made.
Tubing is carefully selected for size and quality, as you might do with any tubeset, before being cut, bonded and wrapped. The process is the same as the way an artisan tube-to-tube builder would make a frame, only the wraps are not carbon but hemp fibres and the resin is plant-based. So if you buried a Netham bike in the ground, would there be anything left in 100 years?
‘Eventually, no, and it would happen a lot quicker than steel or carbon.
What you’d be left with is a couple of aluminium sleeves, which we use in the seat tube and bottom bracket and head tube, and the dropouts. But the bikes are incredibly durable. There are examples of bamboo bikes over 100 years old.’
Feels fantastic
Eco-friendly, socially minded and affordable – Netham frames start at around £500 – what’s not to like? The best part, says Pears, is that bamboo is a great material for a bike full stop.
‘People ask, “Why bamboo?” And yes the bikes are sustainable and the businesses are helping bring skills and money to their local communities. Great. But I’ve made a couple of bikes myself and I just really enjoy how bamboo rides.’
A Netham frame like the one here weighs around 2kg, so not much more than a comparable top-end steel frame, which one would expect to come in at around 1.6kg. Yet bamboo is also stiff, the material having very similar properties to carbon fibre where multiple strands run the length of a tube and are bonded together.
Carbon uses oil-derived filaments bonded with epoxy resin whereas bamboo comes from factory Mother Nature, but the result is both materials display anisotropic properties that make them great for bikes. That is, they are strong in a specific direction dependent on the orientation of their fibres. Of course bamboo can’t match carbon’s stiffness-to-weight, but it outshines the black stuff in other areas.
‘The best thing for me is just how smooth and comfortable a bamboo bike is,’ says Pears. ‘And it can take a beating and is easily repairable – you can just fill a dink or dent. That makes it brilliant for gravel and adventure bikes or day-today commuters.’
So if you happen to be interested in sustainability and trying to build a better environment for people through cycling, bamboo might just be the perfect material for your next bike.
‘It is easily repairable – you can just fill a dink or dent. That makes it brilliant for gravel and adventure bikes or day-to-day commuters’