I would look good on one of these in Brooklyn (updated)

Room for improvement: Eucalyptus suicide scooter, Rwanda

The always excellent Afrigadget is a blog devoted to African ingenuity and invention that has posted about many spectacular creations made from abandoned parts and scrap most northern-hemisphere dwellers would doubtless chuck in the trash. They have a post up now combining two of my passions, bicycling, and bamboo, with a link to this project, which pairs the sustainable (and in many places in Africa, free) plant resource with cutting edge bicycle design.

In Rwanda bicycles are used for transporting almost anything that can conceivably be loaded onto them, and being able to manufacture one out of the weeds growing in the gully would be most helpful



These gents doubtless dropped off a load of cargo in Kigali and are headed back up the mountain the easy way


UPDATE:
I've been hanging around over at Atlas HQ most of the week, repairing the world's most beautiful pasta machine, about which more later. (What this really means is that I have been watching Joseph lathe, mill, weld, buff, sand and polish a part I needed to replace on the world's most beautiful pasta machine, but if you come over to dinner and are subjected to my long, explanatory lecture about the pasta machine, its glories, and the long struggle to restore its functionality, I will most likely by then have convinced myself that I did all the work and therefore take all the credit.) Today when I turned up Joseph had a book to show me that his ex-employee Matthew had rescued from the dumpster at Cooper-Hewitt, Matthew's new employer. He had then thoughtfully brought it by as a gift. Turning at random the pages of what looks to be a most interesting and informative look at bicycles and their physics, I stumbled on this page, concerned with alternative bicycle frame materials. It seemed too grand a coincidence to ignore. (Click the image to load it in a readable size)

Scan courtesy of Atlas; permission neither requested of nor granted by the publisher. Please do contact us if you feel the use of this reproduction here is not in your best interest.