Fair Trade Bamboo Bikes Fighting Poverty and Changing the World

The Republic of Zambia is a beautiful country located in southern inland Africa, blessed with abundant nature, including one of the world's three largest waterfalls, Victoria Falls. However, in reality, it is one of Africa's "least developed countries," with over 60% of its population, approximately 7 million people, living below the poverty line of less than $1.25 per day (as defined by the World Bank).

ZAMBIKES COMPANY is a bicycle manufacturing company with a strong social mission to "change people's lives" by employing local people to produce and sell bicycles, which are overwhelmingly lacking as a means of transportation and delivery for survival in Zambia. It was founded by two Zambians and two Americans.

ZAMBIKES, identifiable by its yellow steel bicycles, has created over 100 jobs in five years, producing and supplying more than 10,000 bicycles and over 1,000 ambulance bicycles for safely transporting patients and pregnant women. It is said that 50,000 lives were saved in 2010 thanks to the 750 ambulance bicycles supplied in 2009.

Last year, to stabilize corporate operations, foster sustainable growth, and expand local employment, ZAMBIKES developed high-quality bicycle frames using "bamboo," which grows locally.



The "ZAMBIKES Bamboo Bike" is an authentic road bike frame made from bamboo grown in Zambia. In recent years, bamboo has garnered significant attention as an ideal frame material for bicycles, capable of replacing traditional metals due to its lightness and strength. Its unique "flex" provides excellent vibration absorption, amplifies human power into propulsion, and makes bumpy roads and long-distance touring more comfortable. Some professional athletes, particularly in triathlons and long-distance races, have reportedly achieved faster times using bamboo-framed bicycles.

The bamboo used for the bamboo bike frames is selected from two types of strong, thick African bamboo that have grown for about three years behind the ZAMBIKES factory. After cutting, it is immersed in a stabilizer (to accelerate drying and prevent cracking at the cut ends) for 24 hours, then dried for several months.

Once an order is placed, dried bamboo is selected according to size. To enhance frame precision, the bamboo is set in a special "jig." Aluminum parts are combined with parts requiring particular strength, ensuring the frame possesses the robustness and rigidity to withstand use as a genuine road bike.

The bamboo pipes that form the frame are initially bonded with wood glue, then tightly wrapped and secured with sisal hemp fibers soaked in epoxy resin. After careful sanding, the entire frame is coated three times with a highly water- and weather-resistant polyurethane resin clear coat and dried to completion.

Alliance Factory, which supports ZAMBIKES, a bamboo bicycle brand striving for tangible social change through bicycle production and supply, imports and sells frames only. However, they can also introduce bicycle shops that can assemble complete bikes.

Retailers
F.I.G bike Harajuku Store
Tel. 03-5413-9050



Alliance Factory
Tel. 03-6456-1975