Xylon Bikes — Wood You Believe It?
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 07.26.06
You might think, at first glance, that Xylon is some made-up word, designed to sound modern and cool. But no, it is simply Greek for wood. Which is kinda apt, given that these very groovy bike frames are crafted from that same tree stuff. Xylon reckon if boats, bridges and aircraft [and we seem to recall the first bikes] have been made from timber then why not today's bikes? “Once a living material, even when cut, machined and shaped it retains its essential character. The sinuous grain, the micro porous texture, the warmth, all combine to define wood as a unique material. Besides its visual qualities, one has to add its excellent mechanical properties, especially flexing and shock absorption.” Aeronautical grade plywood and seasoned hardwood are combined with 'state-of-the-art adhesive' to engineer these hand-built bicycle frames, to which components from leaders in the field are affixed. The completed bikes are designed to be functional, as well as beautiful. The model names reflect the character of their shape and structure. Can you pick which is which? Cell, Klassic, Oll, Sinergia. ::Xylon Bikes, via Cool Hunter, as espied by our own eagle eyed Lloyd.
PS. Nah, we dunno if their adhesive is formaldehyde free, and timber sourced from FSC certified forests or plantations. But that would make us TreeHugger types extra chuffed, were it the case.
Oh and these aren’t the first wooden framed bikes we’ve had around here. There was the Likeabike and the Sandwich Bike (another Lloyd discovery). And, going with the grain theme, those bamboo classics, the Biomega and Calfee.
This is an interesting concept, but will these bikes last? And they dont do much by way of promoting more efficient cycling do they? To a biker I feel that apart from load, the mechanical exertion is the next biggest factor and these bikes, although cool looking, might not provide anything better than that.
Just a thought. Great site, by the way!
Great idea, but I wouldn't buy one. Here in the Netherlands bikes are everywhere in the street. So they're common (and to some a nuissance), and not treated very carefully. If I left my wooden bike on the street for just a couple of minutes, someone would probably set it on fire.
LOL Chris. Man that is one tree hugging hater. Not only are they destroying an eco-friendly mode of transportation, but then they burn it too.
You know I like the idea, and the bikes look very nice, but I think I will wait to hear about how they hold up in the long run. Versus my Fuji bike that was made in the 70's.
Let me see... You buy a tree. You transport it to a mill. You chop it or grind it. Then you add lots of chemical resins. Then - this is good - you take sheets of this stuff and cut out large parts of it and throw it away. Or burn it. Then you use what's left.
What's the energy cost, please?
OK, I know there are energy costs in metal bikes too, but let's not kid ourselves that wood is always the ideal material.
According to Wikipedia's page on aluminium, recycled aluminium takes 5% the energy of producing new aluminum (15 kWh/kg) so call it 0.75 kWh/kg of aluminium, or 0.75 Wh/g, and at 2.7 g/cm^3 that's roughly 2 Wh/cm^3 aluminium, so by volume 2 kWh/L. By volum e is good because a bike has a certain size regardless of what it's made out of.
Somebody else find out what the cost is for plywood.
Anyway, if it's even in the same ballpark, the energy cost isn't something you should worry about. Bicycles are small (a couple liters of metal at most on mine), don't get thrown away very often, and if it takes 20 kWh to produce the bike...
Look at it this way. 1 kWh is 3.6 megajoules. 72 megajoules to create the metal for the bike. Gasoline is 32 megajoules per liter. If we have a 25% efficient internal combustion engine, like something from 1920, and used it to power the smelter it would take nine gallons of gas. That's for illustrative purposes only, of course.
My point is, there are bigger fish to fry. Our world is not yet so energy efficient that we need to worry about the energy cost of producing bicycles.
Unfortunately these look ugly. I had another image altogether in my head when I read the summary of this post in today's crikey, but the reality kind of looks tacky.
Also, I'd feel slightly unsafe at the though of one of these snapping at high speeds coming down Mt Lofty hills!
"You might think, at first glance, that Xylon is some made-up word, designed to sound modern and cool. But no, it is simply Greek for wood."
?? Are you kidding ?? If you've been asleep for the last hundred years, maybe, but you should have been awakened at least by the fall of the Great Soveit Bear years ago.
Looks like a good use for trees, if my 4th Gen family of loggers doesn't chop too much up for use as your house frames and pencils. Oh yeah, protestor-heads too.
LoggerBronk