Bike riding is great for your health, the environment, and all sorts of wonderful adventures. I’m sure there are lots of adventures to be had when riding a bamboo bike!

Flavio Deslandes is the man behind the development of a bicycle made of bamboo. He is Brazilian and he is an industrial designer from the PUC-Rio University. I met him in his small workshop next to The Smithy.

– The bicycle is one of the worlds most brilliant inventions. It is hard to find a disadvantage (to the bicycle) – except the material it is made from. Light bicycles are made from aluminum, which is one of the most resource demanding materials that exist. My bicycles are made of grass, he says.

But Flavio makes me see things differently: Bamboo is a resource of immense potential. And it is strong too. What makes it possible to build bicycles from it is that it is stronger than steel when strained in the longitudinal direction, 17% to be exact.