i’d love to read an article about where the metals that make our bikes come from and how sustainable the materials are and whether or not we care…

sometimes i wonder if this mtb world has lost its political edge, maybe it never had one….? maybe it doesn’t matter that we drive big cars to the hills and upgrade our bikes every five seconds?

i still kind of feel like the best rides start from my house, like they did when i was 16 and i spent every weekend up the Ercall and the Wrekin – back in sunny Shropshire….

When a mummy frame and a daddy frame love each other very much….

Elfinsafety …

Mine mysteriously appear in either the garge or the loft, don’t know how they get there?

Sorry, that was not very helpful at all, was it? 😳

The nasty truth is that our greed for shiny means that materials are being stripped from the Earth at an unsustainable rate, and with catastrophic consequences for the environment. The cycle manufacturing industry is no better than any other, and you can be sure that millions worldwide live in poverty and work for shit wages so’s you can have a steady flow of new type shiny.

We’re all part of the problem, it’s about working out how to be part of the solution.

Being happy with what you’ve got, and riding it until it breaks before replacing it, would be a start. I know, I know; radical concept.

LOL What crap is this!

Is it from a sustainable source.? its mined and then smelted and a mix of silicon is
added to give it some elasticity to take forces and strains put upon the aluminium and the
Aluminium is normally of Aircraft grade.

Regarding the Aluminium you have to be careful in what grade you need, has the structure/property
of the Aluminium is different from each country.

France
Arkansas
Australia
Africa
South America

Political edge some how i dont think so. But there is a Cycle to work scheme going on.

Teh metals are not too bad as they can be almost infinitely recycled and bicycles can have a long life span. I buy most of my stuff secondhand and keep it for a long time

Aluminium is different from each country.

France
Arkansas
Australia
Africa
South America

Only two of those are actually countries…

Does the carbon in carbon-fibre come from oil?

oopps answering both questions at once but Irrelevant has this is where Aluminium is mined

But does the Carbon in Carbon Fibre come from oil is the most stupidest of quotes i have ever heard.
But to help you Yes if you burn oil it produces Carbon.

But does the Carbon in Carbon Fibre come from oil is the most stupidest of quotes i have ever heard.
But to help you Yes if you burn oil it produces Carbon.

Nope – sensible question – stupid answer.

Carbon fibre probably does come from an oil source. It can also come from a rayon source, but the processing for that is pretty energy-intensive and uses nasty chemicals.

Just so you know – aluminium isn’t mined – bauxite is mined. Aluminium is a very energy-intensive metal to produce. You missed China off your list too – big old producer of the stuff.

“…materials are being stripped from the Earth at an unsustainable rate…”

Any rate is unsustainable in the long term.

Old school chairs, filling cabinets and other assorted scrap is thrown into a machine and metal tubes come out the other end.

I have heard this from two industry chaps. One Was shocked and moved production to a better facility for better quality and quality control, one made the most of it and made a lot of very afordable bikes.

But I agree with the original postee, Would be interesting to know the whole process, cradle to grave…. But if we knew we might not like the truth. So we would then look for greener more ethical bikes, and would then be upset when they cost three times the price.

The other way to look at it is that metals get recycled over and over again.
There’s probably a bit of Spitfire in your bike. How cool is that ? 8)

There is an issue with alu/ bauxite to an extent, as there might be with any raw materials to a greater or lesser extent- somewhere around a half of the world’s aluminium comes from Guinea in Africa. There are lots of problems broadly with exploitation and corruption in the mining industry itself. But the main problem is that alu just leaves africa in its rawest state and at its lowest possible value and all the added value is added elsewhere.

If you wanted to be all fair trade about it – and aluminium bike made from alu that had been refined, formed into tubes and billet, and then manufactured in africa would be how you’d do that. Its not going to happen though.

There is an alternative:

Bamboo Bike

If you wanted to be all fair trade about it

You can’t really be fair trade when talking about a finite resource. If it was fully recycled metal then yes. I know what you are getting at with the exploitation of developing nations etc but this is more about damage to the earth than not supporting poorer people.

Oh – just found the article I was looking for:

Is-mountain-biking-as-green-as-it-seems

The world will run out of food (over population) before it runs out of material to make metals etc…

But nobody wants to talk about that sensitive subject…

thanks people, a good start to the “chat” … i guess my interest would be comparing how the different materials are made, (aluminium vs steel vs carbon vs titanium etc….. ) and some sort of investigation into embodied energy. i’ll read that article thanks…

Would that bamboo bike count as carbon?

My Kona came from Ebay, and no doubt had a good few owners before me.

Would that bamboo bike count as carbon?

How do you mean? It is embodied carbon, but it isn’t carbon in the way carbon fibre is carbon. Their website says they use hemp for the lugs as carbon has a different thermal dynamic expansion – or something.

I know what you are getting at with the exploitation of developing nations etc but this is more about damage to the earth than not supporting poorer people

We’re sort of mixing up our good causes – fairness, naturalness, sustainableness, environmentalness. Any effort you make to address one issue can end up defeating you on another

Our drive to have organic goods on the shelves is killing children, for instance.

“unsustainable source”??

Depends if your view is biotic or abiotic.

It has been proven some Oil Wells fill up all on thier ownsome once drained, but don’t tell the Arabs that will you.
(I can’t back that up BTW, it came from something I read whilst at Uni, many years ago)

You may have seen the new style of carbon frame with wavey downtubes and curved toptubes. These are of alien origin and arrive in batches via what I can only describe as a teleportation type system (bit too complex to describe here). The actual manufacturing galaxy is several hundred thousand light years, hence the teleportation system requirement. Unfortunately, on-one shunned the teleport system and decided to send the latest batch of their carbon 29ers via the space-travel equivalent of a “banana-boat”. They should arrive here sometime in 2452, lets hope that the BB standards haven’t changed again by then 🙄

I can’t back that up BTW, it came from something I read whilst at Uni, many years ago

I’d say you have to do better than that, but this is STW.

Even if oil wasn’t finite (I’m sure oil wells are not magic), the pollution etc it produces would still lead to a search for alternatives.

He probably means that when an oil well is ’empty’ and is then left alone oil seeps in from nearby oil fields to ‘refill’ it.

I’m just guessing, working on even less evidence than bikebouy.

there is a video of Si from Cotic talking about frame materials and explaining why carbon is so damaging and how it could be less damaging if used differently in the bike industry.

He probably means that when an oil well is ’empty’ and is then left alone oil seeps in from nearby oil fields to ‘refill’ it.

If you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw…

I have heard this from two industry chaps. One Was shocked and moved production to a better facility for better quality and quality control, one made the most of it and made a lot of very afordable bikes.

[the un-troof]

No, thats not the story at all!

Brant and Steve in true Yorkshire style are kicking arorund the local scrapies looking for bits to build bikes from. The yard owner came over and offered to melt some scrap down and make soem proper tubes for them, they refused being a bit tight arsed.

Steve cut up some filing cabinets and wleded them together to make orange bikes.

Brant just took some Doncaster gas pipe.

[/un-troof]

Filing cabinets!

*slaps head*

It all makes so much sense now!

They must have been pretty fugly agricultural filing cabinets to start with.

*runs from the clattery Orange-riding mob*

It is an interesting question – isn’t there a move to try to include something approaching this kinda information into the labelling of some products now (or have I imagined that?). I thought there was some kinda ‘whole-life’ stuff coming too, and the % and cost of recycling components, so ‘consumers’ could make a properly informed choice … I dunno, maybe that’s just aspirational.

There is lots to be said about keeping stuff going for it’s fullest life too, so riding a steel bike for years (and years), whilst certainly not *the* solution, is probably (maybe) the least worst option ?

TooTall – Member
But does the Carbon in Carbon Fibre come from oil is the most stupidest of quotes i have ever heard.
But to help you Yes if you burn oil it produces Carbon.
Nope – sensible question – stupid answer.

Carbon fibre probably does come from an oil source. It can also come from a rayon source, but the processing for that is pretty energy-intensive and uses nasty chemicals.

Just so you know – aluminium isn’t mined – bauxite is mined. Aluminium is a very energy-intensive metal to produce. You missed China off your list too – big old producer of the stuff.

OK I just wanted to keep the reply simple

But just for you here is the list of Country’s of Bauxite production Tonnes including figures per country
taken from production figures published in 2010 by the British Geological survey all mined in one year.

Total mined Bauxite worldwide was 213,000,000
Australia 62,428,000 Brazil 25,460,700 India 22,999,000 China 21,600,000
Guinea 18,519,010 Indonesia 16,000,000 Jamaica 14,567,738 Russia 6,053,900
Suriname 5,273,195 Venezuela 5,00,000 Kazakhstan 4,962,600 Guyana 2,248,928
Greece 2,220,000 Sierra Leone 1,169,036 Ghana 1,033,368 Turkey 863,404
Bosnia & Herzegovina 800,546 Montenegro 667,053 Hungry 515,061
Iran 500,000 France 160,000 Malaysia 156,785 United States 128,742
Vietnam 80,000 Pakistan 18,082 Mozambique 11,800 Tanzania 5,003

Your quoting skillz are rad.

You wanted to keep it simple, so you mention a US State rather than a country and throw a continent in there too? Baffled of Bristol here.

LOL What crap is this!

Is it from a sustainable source.?

What is crap about it? Mining bauxite isn’t sustainable either – seeing as you failed to answer that as well.

TooTall – Member
Your quoting skillz are rad.

You wanted to keep it simple, so you mention a US State rather than a country and throw a continent in there too? Baffled of Bristol here.

LOL What crap is this!
Is it from a sustainable source.?

What is crap about it? Mining bauxite isn’t sustainable either – seeing as you failed to answer that as well.

LOL never said it was from a sustainable source but just where it came from Read again please

I only make my bikes from wood that is cut right outside my back door and turned using water powered machines. Later I assemble the bike using reeds harvested from the marsh nearby. My tires are hand made from my rubber plantation round the corner and my crank is formed from cheese. Oh wait, no. That’s Race Face. (Which is actually cheese.)

didnt know bairstow did filing cabinets

I can’t ever remember having to fill up my bike with fuel whilst ‘popping’ to the shops. Bikes are tiny things compared to cars, whilst there may be energy expended in their manufacture it must be dwarfed by the amount of energy used to manufacture & move a car. If someone can find out how many bikes can be made from a car I will sleep easy tonight.

matt hope you slept well, you could probably estimate how many bikes could be made from a car just by weight. If an average bike is 30 lbs (13 kilos) and an average car is 1.5 metric tons then you could 115 bikes from a car.. probably..

But does the Carbon in Carbon Fibre come from oil is the most stupidest of quotes i have ever heard.
But to help you Yes if you burn oil it produces Carbon.

Nope – sensible question – stupid answer.

Carbon fibre probably does come from an oil source. It can also come from a rayon source, but the processing for that is pretty energy-intensive and uses nasty chemicals.

They use graphite in squash and tennis rackets. Does that carbon come from oil too? If not, where does it come from?
(given the price of a good carbon-fibre full-suss I suspect melted-down diamonds is the actual source of the carbon…)