“The Bamboo Bike Studio is run by three men in their late 20s who know a lot about bamboo and a lot about bicycles,” writes Jon Kalish for NPR. “On a cool autumn morning, two of them are out on a bamboo harvest — in a dense grove near New Brunswick, N.J.
“Justin Aguinaldo and Sean Murray carry a small Japanese pull saw and a caliper to find bamboo stems that are 1 1/2 inches thick. When they find stems that are just right, they tap the bamboo to make sure it's not too soft: ‘If the bamboo's too watery, it's not as dense and it's not as strong,’ Aguinaldo explains.
“Aguinaldo makes his living as a bicycle messenger. Sean Murray is a former schoolteacher whose voice mail greeting makes note of the fact that he is now living the dream of making bikes with his friends.
“Murray says he finds bamboo patches by reading online gardening forums. He says a lot of people start growing bamboo as a decorative plant — but then it gets out of hand.
“’There's a kind of urgency brought on by the protests of their neighbors,’ Murray says.
“The two bamboo bike makers cut the green bamboo stems in 3-foot and 5-foot lengths and fill the trunk of their small sedan before heading back to their bike studio in Brooklyn.”
