Calfee's unique bamboo bicycles will now be available in the UK, as RAW Bamboo Bikes have announced they're to handle the UK distribution.

US-based Calfee has been building carbon fibre frames sicne 1988 and has quite a reputation. Most interesting of the frames it sells has to be the ones made from bamboo. Considerably overlooked in favour of other more exotic materials, bamboo is actually one of the strongest materials on the planet, with great tensile strength which makes it suitable for bicycle frames, as Calfee are keen to promote.

Calfee reckon that bamboo offers a better combination of stiffness and compliance than carbon fibre. And sales of his bamboo bicycles have been growing in the last few years.

The Bamboo Bike is hand-made from smoked and heat treated bamboo to prevent splitting with hemp fibre lugs. Chainstays are made from carbon fibre for extra stiffness while a satin polyurethane coating is applied to seal the bamboo.

Prices start from £2,175 for a frame or £3,000 for a complete build.

Could bamboo bikes be the future? It certainly has all the right green credentials, being fast growing and able to absorb more CO² than trees and requires less resource to grow. Did you know bamboo grows at a rate of a metre a day?

More at www.calfeedesign.com and www.rawbamboobikes.co.uk.