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• John Mutter, David Ho, Marty Odlin,
• Vijay Modi, Marissa Brodney
• Now at University of Hawaii

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Managing water in the drylands of Ethiopia(Paul
Block IRI)
http//iri.columbia.edu/features/2009/managing_eth
iopia_s_water_resources.html
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outline

• Background
• Objectives
• Accomplishments
• Future plan

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• IMPACT
• Simple sustainable mobility in the form of
  bicycles multiplies peoples efforts and
  efficiencies in areas of healthcare, education
  and economic development.
• Healthcare Brings healthcare to patients and
  patients to healthcare.
• Education Brings educators to the field and
  students to schools.
• Economic Development Sustainable mobility is a
  fundamental requirement in all economic systems.
  Bicycles multiply individuals' efforts in the
  following ways
• Bring goods and services to markets
• Enable workers to get to jobs or find better
  jobs
• Bicycles fuel individuals' entrepreneurial
  drives, and entire businesses can be run off the
  back of a bike.

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S.S. Wilson, "Bicycle Technology", Scientific
American, March 1973.
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S.S. Wilson, "Bicycle Technology", Scientific
American, March 1973.
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background

• Economic activity depends heavily on
  transportation infrastructure at all levels of
  development.
• Bicycles are a ubiquitous form of transportation
  in poor rural communities and in many cities
  used for personnel transport, goods, farm
  products, and for health care provision and many
  other purposes.
• Bicycles are relatively cheap even for poor
  people.
• Almost all bicycles in poor rural areas of Africa
  are completely inappropriate for the multiple
  uses to which they are put and the road
  conditions, are very inefficient and dangerous.
• Bicycle design has advanced significantly in the
  last couple of decades but none of the
  improvements have diffused to Africa.
• All bicycles are imported from India or China and
  are poor quality (no bicycles are built anywhere
  in Africa). Manufacturers have no incentive to
  improve the design.

Images from worldbike.org
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bikes are everywhere
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bamboo bike project objectives

• Introduce greatly improved bicycle design
  appropriate for use in poor rural Africa to
  improve transportation and health care delivery.
• Ensure that semi-literate people in Africa, with
  limited access to electricity (no power tools),
  can build bicycles in Africa from locally
  available materials and components.
• Introduce bicycle-building skills in Africa that
  can be used to develop manufacturing capability
  to serve Africas needs and create employment and
  business opportunities.
• Build bikes at a scale that meets the need not as
  novelties.

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challenges

• Getting people to accept bamboo as a material for
  bicycles
• Build bamboo bicycles in Africa
• Make project self-sustaining
• Bringing the project to scale

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advantage of bamboo bikes

• Can be built without electricity and
  infrastructure.
• Different design without retooling.
• Shipping in 40 ft container (bikes 500 vs. bike
  parts 2000).

Project Rwanda Coffee Bike 120
Bamboo Cargo Bike ca. 100 (including labor,
overhead, profit)
http//www.woodenbikecoffee.com/gallery/41.jpg
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Ghana

• Availability of bamboo
• Availability of bike parts
• Existing bike culture
• Stable government

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progress first idea

• Contact with organizations interested in
  promoting use of bamboo
• International Network for Bamboo and Rattan
  (INBAR)
• Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG)
• Bamboo Rattan Development Program at the
  Ministry of Lands, Forestry Mines (MLFM) of
  Ghana
• Contact with organizations bringing new and used
  bicycles to Africa
• Village Bicycle Project
• Institute for Transportation and Development
  Policy (ITDP)
• World Bike
• Acquired parts and supplies for bamboo bike in
  Ghana
• Conducted bamboo bike building demonstrations in
  Ghana with Calfee
• Built bamboo cargo bike using local parts and
  supplies

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progress first problem

• Not clear how to bring that process to scale
• No difficulty producing a few bikes but not a
  pathway to producing bikes in the quantities that
  would make a difference

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progress second phase

• Alliance with Millennium Cities Initiative (MCI)
  of the Earth Institute
• Focus on the city of Kumasi as a site
• Proximal to the MV of Bonsaaso
• Attract serious investment to bring sufficient
  capital to allow production at the right scale.

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progress second phase

• MCI worked with KPMG to create a business plan
  for scaling the project
• MCI sponsored a Kumasi day at Columbia that
  included the bike project
• Potential investor identified at the Kumasi day
  event

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progress second phase

• Approach now is to support the investor
  identified by MCI
• Build bikes here in New York (Marty Odlin) for
  acceptance in Ghana BEFORE trying to set up in
  Ghana

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What is wrong with current solutions?

• Imported roadsters
• Durability is an issue
• Expensive
• Designed for paved roads

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Why is this bicycle better?

• More durable
• Affordable
• Local
• Cargo rack
• Design for rougher roads

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How are these bicycles made?
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What will a factory look like?

• 20 employees
• 20,000 bicycles per year
• Appropriate technologies
• One piece flow
• Lean production

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But what about the rest of the bicycle parts?

• Supply Chain
• Capacity building
• Future expansion

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What is our current strategy?

• Ship samples to potential markets to gauge
  interest
• Focus is to develop and test the technology

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Business is competition. Why bamboo bikes will
win?

• Labor
• Materials
• Shipping
• Equipment/Overhead
• Energy Buffer
• Specificity of Design
• Flexible Production/Low Inventory Costs

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Why could bamboo bikes lose?

• The bamboo will split.
• The joints will fatigue and break.
• The bikes will be too expensive.
• The production will be too complicated.
• The people will not want to buy them.
• Something else...

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What is bamboo?

• Hollow Tubes
• Natural composite
• Power fibers
• Woody matrix

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Structure of Bamboo
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How do you stop bamboo from splitting?

• Smoking
• Flame Treating
• Boiling in Palm Oil
• Many chemical treatments

There are contradicting anecdotal optimizations,
to scale our production we need to quantify the
structural benefits of each treatment and compare
to costs
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How do you stop bamboo from splitting?
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How do you make a bicycle last?
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How do you make a bicycle cheap?

• KPMG report
• Sourcing
• Development
• Pick up the pennies

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How do you mass produce a natural material?

• Good question...
• Supply Chain management
• Quality Control
• Build the industry around the material

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Acceptance
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Future Projects

• Testing
• Production machine design
• Jig for rack
• Flame treating setup
• Bamboo Smoker
• Solar oven with temperature controls
• Associated bamboo products

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Thank you.