The bamboo bike building bevy Bambooee has launched a Kickstarter campaign for a DIY bike-building kit called the “BIY 2 Bike Kit”, and (you might’ve guessed, given the name) it’s made out of bamboo…
According to Bambooee, “(The) BIY 2 Bike Kit allows anyone without prior knowledge to build any bike themselves in five hours with a modular Builder Jig and smart bike building app.”
Essentially, it’s a bit like Ikea. Bambooee will provide all of the parts and then you will have to assemble – they reckon it’ll take around five hours… or a few times that, if you’re anything like me with Swedish flat pack furniture…
“The Modular Builder Jig has been intelligently designed so that it can be put together in just the right way for the custom bike you want,” reads the Kickstarter campaign.
“You can build a mountain bike, a ladies’ bike, a bike for your kids, or a bike of classic style.
“With the BIY 2 Builder Jig, the design can be creative and endless as any head tube, hub, dropout design can be integrated. You can be a bike designer and make any prototype quickly and easily.”
Now for the bamboo part. On the surface it may seem easily snappable, but according to “Totally Useless Facts About Bamboo” (see, we research these things *properly*, people…) the tensile strength of the plant is just short of steel’s. In South America it’s actually referred to as “Vegetable Steel”. Those facts were not so useless after all…
For a pledge of $249 you can own your very own BIY Bike Kit should the campaign become reality.
Read the full press release below:
Instead of people having to get an impersonal, preassembled bike from a store, BIY 2 wants to expand their horizons a little bit with its Builder Jig, a modular jig and builder community app designed to streamline any bike’s specifications and provide a significantly better builder – and subsequently rider – experience.
The BIY 2 Builder Jig is made of eco-friendly material. It is a modular bike jig that can be used to measure bike frames you have and turn those measurements into an identical bike building project, or it can be used as a jig for any custom bike building. The jig has been intelligent designed to offer great accuracy so builders can adjust to their different specifications easily.
The Builder Jig is reusable and therefore builders can simply buy multiple Builder Frame Kits that contains the prepared tubes for the selected bike model. Building bikes for your family will be more fun and cheaper than buying them from a store. Builders simply assemble their frame on the jig, wrap all the joints with the inhouse fiber that comes standard part of the kit, and have the bike frame readied in 5 hours.
The Builder Community app allows builders to browse different bike designs. It will be updated regularly by both our in-house teams and experienced builders recognized by the community. This means that the builder can access to kids, ladies, classic, mountain and many other bikes specification all in one go. It would also help the user to decide what bike parts are suitable for the selected bike design. Builders will use this app to create their own Personal Fitting Profile, earn points for builds, obtain thorough bike specification information, personalize their user page, and connect with other bike builders!
This will encourage more people to enjoy the building process, have a place to share the work and connect with other bike builders! The integration of both the Builder Jig and Community app will improve the user experience, reduce the difficulties and allow free creativity of bike building.
For all the info click here.
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25.4mm seatpost? Not many of those around (apart from Thompson).
maybe not in the high end MTB world, (which is not really where this is aimed) but walk into any decent LBS and you’ll either be able to buy one or order one for about a tenner…
Haven’t Cannondale started using 25.4 again?