Calfee Design is a California-based bicycle manufacturer, quite well known for its innovative carbon fiber bike designs. The bamboo e-bike is nothing like its usual designs. Looking at the bike, it is hard to imagine anything electric about it. The bike looks as sturdy and atavistic as any Flintstones equipment. The design, however, is sleek and compact in its own way.
North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Salt Lake City is featuring a range of really cool bikes, and the bamboo e-bike is one of those. The bike features a 1,500-watt motor powered by a battery pack of 54 V / 250 Wh. The 12V LED lighting system on the bike is powered by a dynamo hub on the front wheel.
A highly-geared Sturmey-Archer hub transmission in the rear wheel works with the Bafang to reach a top pedaling speed of 64 km/h (40mph). The pedaling is obviously assisted by the motor, and the insanely high top speed is sure to affect the battery range.
Whether such speeds for a bicycle are legal or not remains a question to which Craig Calfee said, “Technically it’s a moped, but we’ll wait until the authorities catch up with us on that one.”
The bike is designed for urban environments and comes with a suspension fork and a seat post. Even spokes on the 20-inch BMX wheels are made from bamboo. The handlebar system can turn 90 degrees which can allow the bike to lean against a wall in a small space. Talking about space, you can even carry your bike upstairs and cram it in your apartment if carrying 50 lb (23 kg) of weight is not too much trouble for you.
This is how Calfee puts forward the need for such a bike, “It’s for people who don’t necessarily have a garage, but they want to have a stylish bike to get around town and travel a pretty long distance with it.”
The bamboo e-bike is yet to be named, but we hope that it can be purchased by the end of this summer. The cost expected to be near US$ 5,000. Pretty alright for something this cool, right?
