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LOOK FOR THIS ARTICLE IN THE THE NEXT ISSUE (42-500) OF BONESHAKER: A BICYCLING ALMANAC.
 According to Jacob Castillo and John McKinney, Fort Collins, Colorado, is the ground zero of environmental forward thinking. “We both graduated with MSBA degrees here in Fort Collins,” the duo said in the Bean Cycle Coffeeshop late last year—which is to say Masters of Business Administration degrees in Global Social Sustainably Enterprise from Colorado State University—“and in 2008 we began brainstorming about using bamboo as a material for bicycle frames. This city is ripe with environmentally minded people and organizations, so it’s a great place to do what we’re doing.”
The result of years of work, both on the business and bicycle fronts, is the newly incorporated Panda Bicycles, a small bicycle production company that instead of utilizing aluminum or steel or carbon fiber as main materials, uses sturdy bamboo stalk for frame tubing. “Bamboo,” McKinney said, “is damn-near perfect for bicycles in its size and strength.” They affectionately refer to their new shop, therefore, as “The Greenhouse,” since it’s where they “grow” bikes.
McKinney, who’s originally from Akron, Ohio, and earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing, and Castillo, a native of Albuquerque, New Mexico, whose undergrad majors were in Agricultural Business, Spanish, and Economics, say, though, they don’t “just want to sell do-good to the world,” but make a very real, very positive impact on the way the bicycle industry conceives of itself. “This really can be an alternative, sustainable direction in which to take bicycle building.”
Having applied a “hardnosed business approach” to their project, “looking carefully at it from a consumer standpoint,” Castillo and McKinney also believe they can provide economical and environmentally friendly bicycles to a wide selection of riders. Considering the attention they’ve already garnered from the likes of the Discovery Channel, Bicycle Radio, and even the Canadian newspaper The Star, it seems they might be onto something. “We want to do right by both community and agriculture, so we take our time and research every angle of our production process, from visiting the places our bamboo is grown, to following up with riders of our bikes.”
Panda Bicycle’s holistic approach is refreshing in an era when marketing and businesses of all kinds often put profits before people and money far before the environment, problems to which not even the bicycle industry is immune.
Their bicycles are organically gorgeous to boot. There’s an elegant aspect to the natural contours of the bamboo that uniquely element each frame, and as such, Panda plans to release a special limited run each year, in addition to the stock and custom projects they are at work on consistently.
If you’re wondering at all about the strength of bamboo as a bicycle foundation, however, rest assured. On a trip over the summer, Castillo and McKinney made the mistake of not adequately affixing one of their newly harvested bicycles to their rack. “We were in a bit of a rush and didn’t strap it down correctly,” Castillo admitted. The bicycle—cringe—came off the rear of their car as it careened some 80mph down the highway. “It bounced along the concrete for a good quarter mile, but you could barely tell!” Castillo exclaimed. “There was zero structural damage to the frame itself,” (at this, even he seemed a bit shocked), “but some of the components were a little banged up.”
So, if a bamboo bicycle can handle that sort of impact, it can certainly handle you riding it around day after day, year after year, which is a genuine piece of good news for the world. The true beauty of Panda Bicycles, in fact, is not only their physical integrity, but their virtuous sustainable attributes that may make cycling feel even better than it already does. |
