The crew behind this little Belo bikes startup got down to construct a extra sustainable youngsters’ bike. Pairing fast-growing bamboo body tubes with recycled plastic lugs, they’ve created a motorcycle they are saying is as shut as you may get to carbon-neutral, whereas nonetheless being 100% purposeful, cool to take a look at, and reasonably priced for folks confronted with youngsters that develop like weeds. For now, the Belo bike is being provided by a Kickstarter marketing campaign in 14″ to twenty″ wheelsize. However Belo hopes to ship their sustainable, made-in-Germany youngsters bikes already by the center of subsequent summer season!
Belo bamboo youngsters’ bikes created from sustainable supplies
“Let your little ones discover the world sustainably. Belo bikes for little eco-heroes!”
Belo’s purpose was to create a greater, extra sustainable bike for youths. As mother and father themselves additionally confronted with fast-growing youngsters, the Belo design crew needed to determine easy methods to construct a high-quality bike that will get their youngsters enthusiastic about driving. However on the identical time, a motorcycle that they may really feel was extra according to the climate-positive advantages of truly driving bikes, as an alternative of making one other disposable product.
Sustainable bamboo & recycled plastics
Bamboo as a body materials first got here to thoughts for its quickly renewable character, minimal processing wants, crimson water consumption, and web unfavourable CO2 impression. Nonetheless, constructing typical bamboo bikes continues to be very labor intensive and requires numerous less-friendly epoxy work. In order that they spent the previous 3 years creating a plug-and-play lug system that makes use of injection-molded recycled plastic to present the bikes construction, and requires a lot much less dangerous adhesive.
Plus, the white recycled plastic lugs had been particularly infused with splashes of colourful all through to create an attention-grabbing look to distinction the impartial tones of the bamboo body parts.
The result’s light-weight and enjoyable to trip. Plus, Belo builds reasonably priced frames because of the easy lugged development, even factoring in manufacturing in Germany.
“By selecting our eco-friendly youngsters’ bike, you’re not solely offering your little one with a enjoyable and wholesome exercise but in addition supporting a extra sustainable planet.”
Tech particulars
Belo describes the bamboo they construct their frames & inflexible forks from as “gentle as aluminum, as robust as metal, and has a excessive resistance to compression, bending, and torsion“. Nonetheless, the fiber-reinforced, recycled plastic lugs are overbuilt to be further robust for the way youngsters use & abuse bikes, whereas nonetheless being light-weight. The bikes are additionally disc brake solely and have thru-axles to work with high-quality wheels.
Past the eco-friendly frames, Belo bikes characteristic strong kid-centric elements. Cozy saddles, ergonomic bar shapes, child-specific levers for straightforward attain, and lightweight reasonably priced alloy elements.
- accessible in 3 wheelsize-specific sizes (S-L) to suit youngsters from round 3- to 8-years-old
- provided with 14″ and 16″ wheels as a singlespeed bike, or
- the 20″ youngsters bike includes a 1x 10-speed drivetrain
- designed and manufactured in Dresden, Germany
Belo sustainable youngsters’ bikes – Kickstarter pricing, choices & anticipated availability
Belo has simply opened up a crowdfunding marketing campaign for his or her sustainable bamboo and recycled plastic youngsters’ bikes on Kickstarter, and so they nonetheless have fairly a methods to go to fulfill their funding goal. As an early backer, you could possibly pre-order their 14″ bike for simply 400€ or the 16″ bike for 500€. The 20″ 10-speed geared Belo youngsters’ bike is a little more at 700€.
And there’s even an choice for a restricted founders addition the place you may get a custom-colored Belo bike for 1000€, then in any of the wheel dimension choices to suit your child.
We’ve additionally heard they’re seemingly additionally engaged on a smaller stability bike model for even smaller youngsters, as nicely.
Belo’s Kickstarter runs by the center of November. Assuming they hit their purpose, Belo expects to ship their bikes out to early backers subsequent summer season, beginning in Could however formally by July 2025.