8 Bicycles Made from Wood That Are Actually Rideable
As the world continues to move into greener and eco-friendly alternatives for various products and industries, it looks as if bicycles are being brought into the wooden revolution. Bicycles, like many other things, have become a long ways from what they looked like in its initial creation. Starting out with wooden and iron components to the more modern look of aluminum, carbon fiber, and plastic, wood is now being utilized for its inherent capabilities of absorbing riding impacts and vibrations. With many of the wooden bicycles on this list actually being purchasable, we’re sharing a list of wooden bicycles to show you what might be the next iterative evolution for bicycles.
If you this the article, follow us on Facebook, take a look out our custom wood production page, and stay tuned for more! All that being said, here are 8 bicycles made with wood that are actually rideable.
8. Waldmeister
VIa bikeradar.com
First spotted at Eurobike in 2007, the single speed Waldmeister was touted as the greenest bike of its year. It was initially built as a concept bicycle playing off of the German words “wald meister,” which means forest master in English. The bicycle became so adored and wanted that it went into production from the late 2000s until the mid 2010s. Each Waldemeister cruiser bicycle’s frame was handcrafted from copper beech plywood.
Designer: Marcus Wallenberg Meyer
7. Holzweg
Via yankodesign.com
Dissimilar to many other wooden bicycles of its time in 2012, the Holzweg bike utilized wood for its riding performance capabilities and not solely its aesthetic. Arndt Menke, the bike’s designer, viewed wood as the strongest, resilient, and lightweight natural material. With this thought process in mind, he used ash wood in the frame to dampen thumps and bumps while riding. In addition to the ash wood’s inherent ability to dampen these riding thumps, it also came weighing in at a mere five pounds.
Designer: Arndt Menke
6. Xylon Bikes
Via coolthings.com
With a name like Xylon Bikes, you’d probably be hard pressed to find anyone who wouldn’t think these bikes would be made from aerospace grade metal and an unconventional design. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth, well, partly. The now defunct company had four cruiser models that purportedly utilized aeronautical grade plywood, seasoned hardwoods, art adhesives and metal fasteners. These bicycles are not only made from wood, but they each sport a very futuristic design pattern for each of their frames. From a Swiss cheese, perforated frame design to a Tron-like orbital frame design, they had a little something for everyone.
Designer: Xylon Bikes
5. Renovo Pursuit
Via bicycling.com
Unlike the aspects of other bikes that utilized wood for performance or aesthetics that were mentioned before, the Renovo Pursuit boasts its bike manufacturing of using sustainable and renewable materials. Unsurprisingly, or maybe surprisingly if you live outside the United States, the handmade wooden frame Renovo Pursuit is constructed in Portland, Oregon, one of the greenest cities in the Northwest, only second to Seattle. As for its general specifications, it comes clocking in at a weight of 4.9 pounds, and the Renovo Pursuit’s frame sources its wood from species such as Port Orford, Bubinga, and Wenge. In addition, according to Renovo, their wood implementation absorbs vibration four times better than carbon does.
Designer: Renovo
4. Materia Bikes
Via thearsenale.com
When you combine 20 years of woodworking with 10 years of professional cycling industry expertise, you get Materia Bikes. Materia bikes is a bicycle manufacturer that focuses on developing handcrafted wooden luxury bicycles. Similar to Renovo, their bikes and manufacturing ensure that environmentally friendly materials and sustainability processes are implemented throughout. Materia sources their wooden frame material from wood species such as ash, cherry, redwood, and walnut. Whether you are a racer, cruiser, or a fixie, they have a bike for everyone.
Designer: The Asenale / Materia Bikes
3. Sojourn Cyclery
Sojourn Cyclery builds their bikes on the premise of combatting a term they came with, Conquering OBS (Ordinary Bike System). Their intention is to create one-of-a-kind rideable art, handcrafted from high quality black walnut wood. With these intentions in mind, they craft their heirloom-like quality bicycles off of three principles of design and construction; innovation, beauty, and performance. They firmly believe wood outperforms metal in terms of both strength and dampening, as well as being lightweight in comparison to their metal counterparts. Sojourn Cyclery builds conventional bikes to electric bikes to even duo tandem bikes, all utilizing wooden frames.
Designer: Sojourn Cyclery
2. Montauk Hardwood Bikes
Founded by Benjamin Tuttle, Montauk Hardwood Bikes got its name after a group of friends finished a cross country bike trip to Montauk, NY in which Ben rode the entire 4,200 mile trip on a prototype bike. Since then, Ben and Montauk Hardwood Bikes have been committed to building exceptional wooden bikes that are meant to be capable of being ridden all day. Ben is a cycler through and through. From cross country riding to handcrafting bicycles, it’s what he lives and breathes. We mention the latter because he put together two incredibly detailed articles explaining why and how wood is the optimal material for building bicycles with. You can read the article about wood’s light weight and durability here and an article about why wood absorbs vibration so well here.
Designer: Benjamin Tuttle, Owner of Montauk Hardwood Bikes
1. The Woody
Via lowrider.com
Coming from an unlikely creator, the bike simply known as Woody was built by carpenter Iran Mestas. Building his one-of-a-kind bicycle was somewhat of a departure from his normal creations since he typically builds custom furniture for a living. Iran Mestas hand built every single wood component of this bike, down to redoing the fenders and seat twice! For the parts he needed laser cut, he sent them off to a trusted associate. To go even further he had those parts dipped in gold and chrome. From the two-tone wood wheels to the wooden mirror, there’s, indeed, no other lowrider bicycle like the Woody.
Designer: Iran Mestas
Discover the Possibilities
Feeling inspired to build a custom wooden product of your own? Well, you’re in luck! Visit our timber & wood building products page to see all the wood & materials we provide.
Be sure to check back often, and don’t hesitate to contact us if you have an idea for a project. We have designers on staff to assist and we provide nationwide shipping.