American man fulfills his dream with bamboo in China's Hutong
- By Li Huiru
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E-mail China.org.cn, June 24, 2015
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David Wang with his bamboo bike [Photo: bamboobicyclesbj.com] |
In a traditional Hutong in Beijing's Dongcheng District, one can notice an inconspicuous workshop with all kinds of bicycle frames and spare parts. What sets this workshop apart is the material the bicycle frames are made from: bamboo.
According to the owner of the workshop, David Wang, who is a young American man, he was inspired to open the workshop after finding piles of old, rusted bicycles in Beijing no longer in use.
Wang is from Boston, a city in the United States. He majored in anthropology when he was a student. He came to China for the first time a decade ago, and in 2012, he returned to Beijing for a job. One day when he saw piles of rusted bicycles, an idea plunged into his brain - he decided to recycle these bicycles.
Wang picked out a discarded road bike and invited his friends to help convert it. However, some of the spare parts were seriously worn out. Then Wang thought of bamboo. He decided to use the natural material to replace the old, worn parts.
Wang took a course on environmental protection when he was a student and had learnt the features and usages of bamboos.
He searched "bamboo bike" online and found that the idea was not new. So he taught himself according to the online tutorial and bought the necessary spare parts online. Wang speaks Chinese fluently, and can say the names of many bike parts in Chinese.
Wang hasn't quit his job, though. He immersed himself in the piles of bamboo each day after work. Three months later, his hard work paid off. The frame and crossbar of the bike were made from bamboo and the joints of the frame were wrapped in layers of fiberglass, carbon fiber and hemp fiber composites. The bike is very strong and looks stylish.
But Wang was not satisfied; he wanted to know more about bamboo. The hundreds of varieties of bamboo offer all kinds of colors and shapes which have the potential to make for truly unique and attractive bike frames. Last year, he went to Taiwan's bamboo producing areas and visited the bamboo craftsmen there.
In order to get more people involved, Wang collected money through crowdfunding. Through this method, he raised US$17,000, enough to cover the cost of raw materials for 25 subsidized bamboo bicycle frames. He also used the funds to run a bike-building workshop with the goal of spreading the idea among Beijing youth.
Wang rented a 25-square-meter room in 26 Langjia Hutong to use as his workshop. Each day from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Wang and his students were busy. According to Wang, he and his students have produced 149 bamboo bikes in one year.
For Wang, his goal is not to mass produce bamboo bicycles. The emphasis is to develop interest. He said the workshop runs like a training institution. He teaches those who are interested in how to make bamboo bikes and help them build bikes of their own.
"It feels great to mingle with other people in the community," Wang said. "I will always put their interests in the first place."
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