Chinese capital Beijing was once synonymous with cycling, its people getting around on swarms of the classic Chinese Flying Pigeon bike. But increased affluence has seen wealthy Chinese increasingly turn to cars for transport, causing pollution and congestion problems.

Now David Wang, founder of Bamboo Bicycles Beijing is trying to turn around the fortunes of the bike by allowing people to build their own from bamboo.

Wang told Adam Justice of the International Business Timesthat he was inspired to found the workshop after finding piles of old, rusted bicycles in Beijing no longer in use.

He said that besides offering a chance to build a unique-looking bicycle to reinvigorate the idea of cycling in the city, he is hoping to establish a community for Beijing commuters.

"I think the biggest thing is that we want to change the attitude towards different kinds of mobility. One of things when we were doing research before was talking about how the private car is very valuable socially, it gives a certain kind of social status.

"By creating a community that values other forms of mobility, that actually makes it a lot easier to say OK, I want to ride my bike to work, I want to ride my bike to school because it's an expression of myself, it represents who I am as a person, and I think that's very important," he said.



It takes two days to make your own frame at Bamboo Bicycles Beijingand costs RMB2000, a little over £200. Frame-building sessiona are run in Engliash and Chinese.


posted by Chris 
21st April 2015 - 17:20