Growing a Better Bike
Anyone who's ever spent time in rural Africa can tell you how intrinsic bicycles are to daily life there. In the absence of cars, they function as taxicabs, moving vans, even two-wheeled ambulances.
But such use can take its toll, and the bikes in Africa, most of which come from China, were designed for leisurely rides. "They need fixing all the time," says John Mutter, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University. Nor do they do anything to help the local economy. So a few years ago, Mutter co-founded the Bamboo Bike Project, with the aim of producing better bicycles at the same price, using local resources and labor. After considering several materials, Mutter's team settled on bamboo, which is abundant, strong, and lightweight. "It grows very rapidly and is essentially renewable," he says.
The project's first factory, owned by a Ghanaian businessman, began production in January and should reach capacity this summer. The plan is to scale up to 20,000 bikes a year -- enough to make a dent in the import market. "If you do it as a cottage industry," Mutter says, it won't have the necessary impact. "This is about economic empowerment. It's not about another cute bike."
