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Stalk Bicycles

New Use for Bamboo

Lori Eanes

     Bamboo is a natural material to make bikes out of — it’s strong, it’s lightish and it comes ready-made in a tubular shape. But in an age when bikes are made from increasingly advanced composites and riders spend hundreds of dollars to shave off an ounce, making a bicycle out of a grass seems the act of a self-consciously retro (or over-zealously environmental) idealist. Not so, says Stalk Bicycles founder Zack Jiang.
     “It’s not just art. Bamboo has a nice supple feel on the road. Like spring-boards, which are based on a wooden platform because the fibers absorb the shock, the inside of the bamboo is the shock absorber, while the outside is the exoskeleton.”
     Like his partners Nick Chan and Lars Jacobsen, all of whom graduated U.C. Santa Cruz together in 2008 (what were you doing at 25?), Jiang finds bamboo the ideal material to build a company on. Based out of a divvied-up warehouse in West Oakland along the Emeryville border, the trio has been quietly producing custom bikes since early 2009. “We’re learning how to be a small manufacturer,” says Jiang.
     But plans are in the works to build their first production bike, a single-speed urban commuter with swept-back handlebars that will be available at a lower price point than the $1,500 to $2,000 that a custom Stalk will usually cost. Producing a stock model isn’t just more efficient from a manufacturing perspective, says co-founder Jacobsen, but in line with the company’s goals to promote bikes as sustainable transportation. And few bikes could make the claim to be more environmentally friendly than Stalk’s, which are not only made out of fast-growing bamboo, but are secured at the joints with sisal rope and a naturally derived bioresin. The result is a joint that is so strong Jiang compares it to being cold-welded (they are frequently asked about the strength of the joints).
     “We’re making a domestically sourced product with organic material,” said Jacobsen, “but that’s not number one. First, a bamboo bike is sexy. Second, it rides really well. Third, it’s sustainable. It gives the world a push in the right direction.”