Have you always wanted a bamboo bike, but just didn’t know where to get one? Probably not, but if you have you’re in luck - a new line will be on the market soon. I’d never even heard of a bamboo bike until someone mentioned one on my bike co-op listserv last week.

My research brought me to Brano Meres Engineering and Design, which was founded by mechanical engineer and industrial designer Brano Meres. He built his first bamboo bike (pictured below) in 2005 and even rode it in a bike marathon last summer. Why go bamboo? Meres says it’s light and bamboo frames dampen vibrations better than carbon frames. And good news for anyone who’s thinking about buying a bamboo bike - according this interview, Meres hopes to finish the first production series of bamboo bikes by this June.

photo courtesy of Brano Meres Engineer and Design

If you just can’t wait, you can order a bamboo bike from Calfee Design. Prices range from $1,695 for a basic model to $4,495 for a custom one. And as its website touts, “If there were an award for ‘Bicycle with lowest carbon footprint’ (least amount of carbon dioxide emissions in the production of the frame), this frame would win, hands down.”

Last year, Calfee Design founder Craig Calfee teamed up with the Columbia University Earth Institute to launch the Bamboo Bike Project. The project, which “aims to examine the feasibility of implementing cargo bikes made of bamboo as a sustainable form of transportation in Africa,” is well-thought out and sustainable. Craig and his team show African villagers how to make bikes using local materials (like bamboo) and how to repair them so they’ll have reliable transportation in the long run. You can read about their trip to Africa last summer on the project’s blog.

It sounds like a great project and I’m seriously considering buying one of their cool t-shirts to support their work.

And now I really want to ride a bamboo bike. Has anyone tried one out?