Comments on: Tiki Bike

By: ant1ph0n

ant1ph0n — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 07:17:03 +0000

here ya go

these were a steal for $150 for both! (someone apparently left them in a storage unit that was never paid for)

his and hers pair =]

http://ant1ph0n.deviantart.com/#/d2rrzp8

By: dc

dc — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:58:07 +0000

I normally don’t give the Company Store catalog any attention when it finds its way into my mailbox, but the cover on the one that arrived yesterday caught my eye:

The bike, sadly, is not for sale in the catalog. (You can buy Charisma® for as low as $6.39, however.)

By: wordnerd

wordnerd — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 12:59:41 +0000

Bamboo and Carbon Fiber Bike Design…like Smartphones and Smoke Signals.

We grow bamboo in Massachusetts, by the way.

By: dc

dc — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 07:38:59 +0000

Turns out that bamboo frames are more common than I realized. There's a place in Brooklyn that'll even teach you how to make one in a weekend. Someone made a nice bamboo cargo bike in Ghana. I still think the frame above was bamboo-wrapped steel, but I'm less sure than I was. I wish I had investigated more closely. (Haven't seen it since that day.)

By: jabel

jabel — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 06:39:55 +0000

Ha!

By: nnyhav

nnyhav — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 01:40:14 +0000

gives a whole nother meaning to bike basket dont it?
wonder if it can be repaired whilst weaving in and out of traffic …

By: unique distance from isolation

unique distance from isolation — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 21:35:19 +0000

In the Beverly Cleary book I am reading my kids, Henry Huggins goes to a bike auction to buy a bike with his carefully saved $4.04. There is a crowd, so HH can’t get close enough to the auctioneer to see any of the bikes or to have his bid heard. Ramona, who has come along with Beezus, goes missing. When Ramona shows up (held up and announced by the auctioneer as if to be bid on, naturally), Beezus goes up to get her. Henry, who still can’t get through the crowd, asks her to bid on a bike for him. Beezus bids successfully, and excitedly tells Henry that she has gotten him a good one, with handlebars and everything. When Henry sees it, however, he is crestfallen. Not only is it beat up, missing several spokes, etc., it is completely unsalvageable in a more essential way: it is a GIRL’S bike. Henry takes it home nevertheless, and tries to fix it by using twine to tie a sawn-off broom handle in place. Of course, the first thing his friends Robert and Scooter say when they come over is: What’s that broom handle tied to your frame for?

Now, if only Henry Huggins had seen the tiki bike, he would have known what to do. In fact, we are still in the middle of the book, so maybe Henry will wrap his bike in bamboo yet.

By: dc

dc — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:29:05 +0000

This Cameroonian custom build might take the cake:

You can get some handcrafted Italian wood rims from this guy:

http://wheelfanatyk.blogspot.com/2007/05/cermenati-wood-rims.html

By: wordnerd

wordnerd — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:12:39 +0000

For a less serendipitous version:

http://www.renovobikes.com/

At the Boston Road Club races twenty-five years ago, the ex-Olympian John Allis used to ride a bike with wooden rims. Neither Tiki or Renovo are going that route.

By: dc

dc — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 07:15:05 +0000

Tiki bars seem to be trendy again these days, and I did wonder whether the bike had any connection to a Tiki bar about 4 blocks away from where I saw the bike parked, or a different Tiki bar right across the bridge in Oakland, about 8 or 10 blocks away.

Speaking of Tiki bars, the Mai Tai was recently made Oakland’s official cocktail, since it was invented here in at the original Trader Vic’s.