Oxfordshire Woodland Group

Nick Coates is a Hampshire based engineer who has developed a new use for coppiced wood by harvesting small diameter rods and then hollows these out to make wooden tubes that he then uses to make wooden bicycle frames.

He has now launched a company called Beamz to make these bicycles.

The use of hollow wood tubes is not new with bamboo having been known to be used to make bicycle frames however Nick's approach is quite different from that used by others like Renovo in the USA where a high tech CAD/CAM approach has been adopted to make wooden bicycle frames that can only be described as state of the art.

For the wood purist it might also be appropriate to consider fitting wooden wheels.
These were once very popular with grass track cycle racers and are still made today from laminated beech / hickory by Ghisallo.

An Irish company Woodelo makes solid wood ash frames fitted with wooden wheels

though it might be more appropriate to use hub mounted disc brakes to avoid abrasion of the wooden rims and thus prevent any damage the wooden rim weatherproof coatings.

Ken Hume