Wooden bicycles, lots of pics

[spinningmagnets]

If you Google "wooden bicycle" or even "bamboo bicycle" (use "image search" also look at "fun bicycles" and "odd bicycles") there's plenty of crude whimsical examples...but I was pleasantly suprised and more impressed than I expected. A "trash day" MTB can provide head-tubes, BB's, drop-outs,...and a selection of bikes can even be bought for $20 at thrift stores.

If you can't afford a custom metal frame that accomodates a motor you want to use, or you wish you had an expensive recumbent...

Tino Sana


Old chinese carpenter, Peijia Wu (crank rods ! no chain)


High school shop project, Marco Facciola


Close-up, wooden freewheel


Waldmeister, German work of art


Tandem work of art, Jens Eichler (plywood laminated, then shaped)


unknown Wooden MTB


West-8

[mrgarci1]

Tino Sana


Holy crap that is a nice lookin bike. My jaw actually dropped when I saw it.

[spinningmagnets]

Here's a Renovo (expensive!) hollow wood frames available in a variety of woods and bamboo (Hickory, Cherry, Ash, Maple, Bubinga, Jatoba, Padauk, Sapele, special requests...)

Frame is CNC machined, ~$2,000+, http://www.renovobikes.com/r2-road/

[mrgarci1]

can u post the image again? didn't work properly.

[spinningmagnets]

(edit: moved link to pic above)

[Zoot Katz]

I'm surprised we missed this one:
Wood Bikes You Can Make
http://woodenbikes.com/

woodbike2.jpg

I forget where I got this one

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This bike was on the show circuit in 2006.

Wood_Rocky_Mountain_bike.jpg

BC timber, BC bicycle company

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[spinningmagnets]

After a while searching, you begin seeing the same examples. I resisted posting more, but for those who have read so far, here's the best of the rest I found.

Reinhold Eichhorn


Peter Dahlberg


Gota


Magni Vinicio


Giuseppi Matera


The Amazing Wooden Bike Company


Two from Igor Ravbar (steam-bent strips glued together and cured while clamped in a form)



Alan McKay


Howard Hung


Bernd Vonau, SWB recumbent


Jan Gunneweg


1940 Italian Borsari (wartime metal in short supply)

[Lock]

OK, wood only as "accent"/detail but I thought the Mars pretty elegant:

Marrs_electric_cruiser_2008.jpg

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(ps...why does this show only as link and not online pic?)

[spinningmagnets]

Marrs electric cruiser 2008 (thanks, Lock!)

[Lock]

Yer welcome
I think of this one too as a "woodie"... not sure why:

[Lock]

Leonardo-da-Vinci-bicycle.jpg

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[Lock]

For the yachties:

Marine.jpg (103.58 KiB) Viewed 18083 times

[Lock]

For the yachies again:

Autocanoe1.jpg

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[mrgarci1]

Can that autocanoe be pedaled directly into the water? It looks like there are "paddlewheel" wooden slats attached to the wheels.

[Lock]

Apparently:

Autocanoe-launching.jpg (15.05 KiB) Viewed 18078 times

Jeremy spotted it and posted in the Electric Boat thread:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9806&start=30#p153676

Autocanoe here:
http://www.autocanoe.com/

tks
Lock

[spinningmagnets]

The "TJ Flyer" (Truss Joint) 3/8" Baltic Birch plywood over Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL)

[Zoot Katz]

I forgot this one Justin found on the prairies.
Richard Pitre's bike made of hockey sticks:

[spinningmagnets]

I found the Igor Ravbar bikes fascinating, made of steam-bent strips. I recently stumbled across a story about furniture making where strip wood was bent by applying the side of the strip to a hot-pipe (heated by an electric element or a small propane torch).

The heat partially melts the connective lignin "glue" between the fibers, and if clamped in shape while cooling, the strip will retain its bent shape. Gluing several similarly bent strips together makes a laminate that is light and strong with a certain amount of springiness to it, much like a laminated archery bow.

this site is for making guitars, but it had the best pics for the hot-pipe wood-bending method.

http://gicl.cs.drexel.edu/people/sevy/luthierie/guitarmaking_guide/side_bending/side_bending.html

[Lock]

Wood is a fantastic building material. It is only important that 1)you dry the moisture content down to about 10% in the finished structure and 2)that you absolutely seal the wood completely to keep any moisture out after that.
tks
LoCk

[spinningmagnets]

This is "Le Zelo", a homebuilt wooden recumbent tadpole trike from Boris Beaulant.

http://www.borisbeaulant.com/



From Sakari Messuilla

[spinningmagnets]

From the "Atomic Zombie" website, Jon in Maryland

[Lock]

Beautiful things! Saw this concept the other day, here:
http://www.sandwichbikes.com/

olc_bike.jpg (16.63 KiB) Viewed 9915 times

...but it pales in comparison (although intended as super-cheap/easy to build...)
tks
Loc

[spinningmagnets]

Here's a great link about making your own fenders out of thin wood. It looks like a great winter project when you're stuck indoors. You can make them very simple and classic, or as complex as you want if you have an artistic streak.

Once the thin wood substrate is shaped, you can take a razor blade and cut veneers into patterns of stripes, diamonds, or any shape you want to make a attractive skin to add. Add a coat a clear sealer and you're set. Home-made guitar websites have some great info with lots of pics on making a skin of attractive wood designs.

http://www.momentumplanet.com/components/how-make-your-own-wooden-bike-fenders

http://www.woodysfenders.com/store/

[def215]

thats just amazing. i wouldnt think that bike could be made out of wood but that proved me wrong. there are some pretty cool designs that they have. how about building your own http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to- ... o-Bicycle/

[spinningmagnets]

Good find, def215, I have seen pics of bamboo bikes on the web, but the instructable you found had great info on the process, so a home-builder could make one themselves. I originally started the wooden bikes thread because I was interested in collecting info and examples of methods for construction used in the past, and I knew wood could be very strong and reasonably light if engineered properly. This would allow me to make a custom frame just the way I want (and I have odd taste). Pic is from bamboo-bike link above (frame ended up being VERY strong)