Today is the first day! I can’t wait to get started. Do I have everything I need? Making up my mind, what kind of bike I want to build might have been the hardest part. In the Ozon Shop I can get kits for a Gravel Bike, short Cargo Bike, long Cargo Bike, Track Bike, Singlespeed, Multispeed and a Women City Bike. I’ll start with Rafa, as it’s the easiest bike you can build and so probably the best choice for a first bike. If I get a like into it I might build one for my wife or friends too. So What do I need to finally get started building my first bamboo bike frame?

On this first day the bamboo gets cut and glued, metal parts will get sanded and flax will get glued to them. So I need:

• Bamboo
• drop outs
• Break Mount
• seat post tubing
• bottom bracket shell
• steering tube
• Epoxy resin (5-minute Epoxi) & hardener
• Flax
• sticky tape
• old bike tubes

To make the Rafa bamboo bike slicker, I have split the bamboo in half, sanded it down a bit and then glued back together with epoxy resin. This is absolutely NOT necessary, but I thought it might look good to have thinner tubes and in the end it’s all about the looks, isn’t it? And this is important to mention: this doesn’t make the frame any less rigid. It’s the with of the bamboo that makes the frame rigid, not the thickness and we’re merely reduce the width at all.

I have flattened the bamboo with a belt sander. Most people don’t have one in their shed wich is a shame, because it’s a great tool and they are not too expensive. Once you’ve taken a like in building bamboo bikes you might buy one yourself. Check craigslist, gumbtree or ebay-kleinanzeigen to find one. It’s absolutely worth it 😉

With bamboo parts sanded, I have glued them with 5 minute epoxy and then wrapped them into old bike tubes. You can get them in any bike repair shop. Usually they are happy to give them to you. Otherwise they’ll just throw them away or send them to a manufacturer to get them recycled. You’ll need some tubes later in the frame building process, too. And for the bike you want to build afterwards. This might actually work with screw clamps or one hand clamps or other tools, but I think reusing old tubes is the cheapest and easiest way to do it. And there’s probably some nice thought in reusing old tube to build new bikes.

The metal parts need to be sanded, cleaned and then glued with flax fibre. To fixate the flax to the metal parts, it’s hard to use bike tubes, so there we use the sticky tape. Simply wrap it around the glued parts, but this is important: do this with the sicky side outside! Like that it’s easier to untighten it, when it’s hardened.

OK, I’m done for today, theres nothing more to do for mow, but waiting until the epoxy is hardened. I’ll have to go back to the workshop tomorrow.

Can’t wait to finish my first bamboo bike!