A bamboo bike for everyday use
Three computer science students at ETH Zurich want to bring to market a bicycle made of bamboo at a price of no more than 500 Swiss francs. The first batch of bikes is now in production.
Ask Kevin Klein, a computer science student at ETH Zurich, what he thinks of bicycles with a bamboo frame, and he’ll tell you they’re more stable, more lightweight, more sustainable – and more beautiful. Standard bikes for everyday use are made of steel or aluminium, but Klein knows these carry a heavy burden of embodied energy. “Bamboo, though, grows three centimetres every hour – just like that, without your having to lift a finger,” he says.
The 21-year-old ETH student is managing director of Koala Bicycles, a three-man start-up that he founded in the spring together with Tim Taubner and Philip Junker. Their goal is to produce a bamboo bicycle that’s suitable for everyday use, cheaper than today’s bamboo bikes, and better than the standard steel or aluminium street bikes in its price category. They’re aiming for a price of no more than 500 Swiss francs for their bamboo bike. “The price is what sets us apart from the other bamboo bicycles on the market. Right now you’d have to spend at least 1,200 francs on that kind of bike. Some of them even cost over 3,000 francs and they’re real collector’s items,” says Klein.
First prize for the prototype
It was Taubner’s idea to build bikes out of bamboo. His family has roots in China, and it was there that he first came across this material. In China, bamboo is used for all sorts of things, but in Europe people don’t really trust it and it isn’t much used. Taubner couldn’t understand why that was, so he started looking around for an opportunity to use bamboo.
It was an ETH Entrepreneur Club competition that ultimately gave Taubner, who studies mechanical engineering and computer science, an outlet for his bamboo bike idea – and his prototype won first prize. He also took home the special awards for “best added value” and “best innovation”. Taubner’s success caught Junker’s attention, and he promptly offered to help found a bamboo bike company. Then the two approached Klein with the idea of appointing him as their managing director. And so it was that these three students, who had long known each other through their studies, came together to found Koala Bicycles.
First bikes built by hand
To launch their product, the trio kicked off a pre-purchase campaign: customers had until 10 August to order a fully customised bamboo bike, with prices starting at 700 Swiss francs. Since 18 August, the three students have been building the bikes to order in a workshop in Zurich-Oerlikon. They figure that each bike will take up to 15 hours to build. The aim is to complete production of this initial small batch of bikes and get them out for delivery on 23 August.
The young entrepreneurs are sourcing the bamboo for the bike frames from China. Taubner’s mother was born there, and she was able to put them in touch with a suitable supplier through personal contacts in her former home country. But the main components – the bottom bracket, gears and brakes – are all conventional parts. Since the first customers get to select the parts for their bike themselves, the young entrepreneurs can’t conduct a thorough ecological assessment for their product. “But bamboo is definitely more environmentally friendly than steel or aluminium pipe,” Klein stresses.
Advertising tour of European cities
The students are hoping that the customers from their pre-purchase campaign will give them feedback that they can apply to the production of other models. Building on that, they want to offer a Kickstarter model for 500 Swiss francs from mid-September. These bikes will come only in standard sizes and with a standard set of parts, and the aim is to sell 300 of them throughout Europe.
From mid-September the three are planning to go on a tour to promote the kick starter campaign in several European cities, including bike-mad Amsterdam and Copenhagen. After bamboo processing and shipping, assembly and delivery of the bikes ordered will run from mid-November to the endof November, although at that point the future computer scientists won’t be involved in the actual assembly work. “The bikes will be built for us in specialised workshops,” they explain. Ideally, they would like the workshop to be located right by a major port such as Rotterdam or Hamburg. This would save them importing the bamboo into Switzerland – and would cut the bikes’ delivery costs. And there is only one shipment instead of two.
Studies first, then business
Earning a living from their new business isn’t (yet) an option for the three students. “We’re not looking to turn a hobby into a career; we’d rather develop the bike business in parallel with our studies,” explains Klein, who goes on to add: “We don’t want our bamboo bikes just to cater to a niche. We want to serve the mass market.”
Koala Bicycles is still not an official ETH spin-off because, as Klein says, “our business idea has nothing to do with training or research at ETH.” But the three entrepreneurs have contacted ETH Zurich’s Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore, where Dirk Hebel, professor for architecture and construction, investigates the use of bamboo as a construction material. Klein would like to share know-how with the experts there and apply their knowledge to bicycle production. And then draw up a roadmap that takes Koala Bicycles beyond the delivery of the Kickstarter models and on into the future.
