We’ve written about the cardboard bike, which has had some teething problems. It makes sense to produce bicycles from cheap, locally available materials, so why not a bamboo bike? There’s a growing consensus for it as a Third World transportation solution.

 

At Columbia University’s Earth Institute, they point out that a small percentage of African people can afford cars or motorcycles, and it's a place where bicycles are expensive, as are the public buses. One problem is that bikes are all imported from China or India — there’s no local business making them in sub-Saharan Africa.