Eco-friendly handmade bicycle made of nearly all wood
It’s wooden. It’s eco-friendly. And it’s a … bike? There’s glue it yourself with no metal options and then there’s the prized luxury designer bikes. But Dutch industrial designer Jan Gunneweg’s new wooden bike is in a class by itself, reported Treehugger.com.
Crafted by hand out of pure walnut, the 35-pound bike is almost all-wooden, right down to the thick wooden spokes and hip wooden rims on the wheels. The arrangement of the spokes give the sense of a continuous line from the front wheel to the rear. Making the bike posed a challenge, but the real feat was balancing the wheels, which proved tricky because of the wideness of the spokes.
As steel and aluminum production requires a great deal of energy, wood and bamboo have an environmental advantage as materials. This, coupled with the make-it-yourself principle, has contributed to the incredible surge of handmade bamboo bikes, witnessed everywhere from Brooklyn to Africa.
Long fascinated with wood, Gunneweg has two wooden bikes already under his belt. The difference with this version is it provides a smoother ride.
The bicycle has significance beyond its wooden material: The spokes are intended, said Gunneweg to Co.Design, to “symbolize the legs of man.”
Tagged in: bicycle, bike, wood, wooden, jan gunneweg,
LadyLUX via Treehugger
