A Cardboard Bike?

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By Stett Holbrook
Posted 2012/10/16 @ 11:30 am
Category Fun & Games, Home

Israeli inventor Izhar Gafni says he ready to mass-produce a 20-pound bicycle made of cardboard. There are no metal parts. The chain is actually a car’s timing belt and the tires are made from reconstituted rubber. The cost? Twenty bucks.

From Endgadget:

Izhar…spent 18 months just folding the material every-which-way in order to discover a strong enough design, and now he claims his technique is almost ready for mass production. His maintenance-free bike uses a “secret” mix of organic materials to make it waterproof and fireproof, and is then lacquered to give it a friendlier appearance.

“It’s strong,” Izhar says. “It’s durable. It’s cheap.”

This video about Izhar’s project is a great look into a maker’s mind at work.

BY Stett Holbrook

Stett is a senior editor at MAKE.

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10 Responses to A Cardboard Bike?

Snehal on October 16th, 2012 at 12:02 pm said:

$20? Seriously? So you never have to pay the person doing the labor nor do you have to pay for the parts right? Come on! Sorry but I’m not buying it – in either sense.

Reply ↓
- mark on October 17th, 2012 at 1:49 am said:
  
  I think they mean $20 of parts, not $20 to build.
  
  Reply ↓
- Kakungulu on October 19th, 2012 at 12:06 pm said:
  
  This is an estimate of the mass-produced bikes, for which 20$ sounds right. His prototype cost probably over 1000$, if you consider the learning curve and trial and errors and the hours he spent just mastering the techniques. It will cost him 1000′s more to convert the manual process into automated production, because I don’t think he could just travel to China and say “here, make a 1000 of these.”
  Cardboard, resin and some rubber cost pennies.
  Getting these to mass production is the real news in this post.
  
  Reply ↓
nitrofurano on October 16th, 2012 at 1:32 pm said:

let’s see how successful will this be among Palestinian people

Reply ↓
Christalyn Snyder on October 16th, 2012 at 6:40 pm said:

The idea is awesome! I hope it makes it’s way the the states. I’ve build all sorts of things out of cardboard, but this takes the prize.
The designer’s story is great too. Nothing like good challenge to do the “impossible.”

Reply ↓
Sam Pittman on October 16th, 2012 at 10:36 pm said:

No metal parts? Isn’t that a metal pulley on the rear wheel?

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Alan Dove on October 17th, 2012 at 10:51 am said:

Excellent – now I’ll finally be able to slip my bicycle through the TSA’s metal detectors unnoticed.

Reply ↓
- fabrício nascimento on October 17th, 2012 at 1:15 pm said:
  
  Você esta certo!
  
  Reply ↓
toddwilley on October 20th, 2012 at 8:10 pm said:

I heard about this in Virtual Light. I can’t wait to spend 3 days painting it to look old and grimy so nobody steals it.

Reply ↓
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