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How to build a bike: The revival of a British craft

(6 posts)
  • Started 11 years ago by crowriver
  • Latest reply from crowriver

  1. crowriver
    Member

    [/i]Sales of bikes in the UK are up. But not everyone is content with buying a mass-produced bicycle. Some are looking for something different, which is helping the revival of a traditional British craft.

    Peter Bird likens himself to a tailor. At his workshop at Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire he takes his clients' inside-leg measurements and finds out their exact needs.

    But the tools of his trade are not a needle and thread, they are a brazing torch and steel tubes. His creations are not bespoke suits, but bespoke bicycles.[i]

    Continues at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22160187

    Posted 11 years ago #

  2. wangi
    Member

    https://twitter.com/edfoc/status/324496967000526848

    .@POPScotland or you can build your own bespoke bike in Scotland in June http://www.edfoc.org.uk/events/workshops/frame-build-booking-form/ at the Edinburgh Festival of Cycling

    Anybody planning tae build a bike out of bamboo? Best avoid Corstorphine Hill!

    Posted 11 years ago #

  3. Kim
    Member

    The thing about building a bamboo bicycle it that it all done with hand tools, so it is a very low environmental impact bike. And yet according to test carried out by Dr Shpend Gerguri at Oxford Brookes University has high performance ride as good as a bespoke steel frame bike. Sadly I won't have time to build on this year, but there are spaces still available for those who do.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  4. crowriver
    Member

    @Kim, I was at their talk during the Science Festival. The interesting thing about that research was they have devised a solution to the problem of joining up the bamboo poles which they claim is much more satisfactory than the standard method of wrapping some hemp webbing soaked in resin around the joints.

    I think this technique (which they have patented I think) was the key to the strength and durability of the frames they made. Hence why they could race across the alps on the bikes!

    Posted 11 years ago #

  5. wangi
    Member

    @crowriver: I was interested in the "welding" approach, but the FAQ on their site says it's the hemp resin...

    "What material do you use to join the frames? We use a hemp canvas which is wrapped around the joints and soaked with an epoxy resin. Throughout all our experimentation, this proved to be the simplest and most effective method of bonding."

    Posted 11 years ago #

  6. crowriver
    Member

    @wangi, yes but it's what's going on under the resin, the bits you can't see. I can't remember the details but they have some way of joining the tubes to make it all more rigid, secure, but resilient to vibration. They don't make the exact details public, but from what they alluded to in the talk makes it more like a manufacturing process and takes away some of the handicaraft/guesswork out of it. Presumably saves time and makes a more precise join.

    Posted 11 years ago #

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