Yojiro Oshima is a student in the Craft & Industrial Design Department at Musashino Art University in Tokyo. For his final project before graduation, he designed and made a wooden bike (complete with wooden wheels, handlebars, and saddle). His goal with the design was to incorporate the benefits of a beam frame and a standard frame, so the short cantilevered seat beam was designed to “reduce large impacts” while the “seat stay and the chain stay remain as usual to assure the stiffness.”
In addition to the beautifully crafted frame, Yojiro sculpted a wooden handlebar with integrated armrests and created “baton wheels” with an arc between the spokes and rim to soften the ride.
It is a beautiful prototype, and I would love to see a video of it completely built and actually ridden. For now though, see additional still pictures of the bike below.
This is spectacular.
I wonder how it was made. Is it hollow? CNC-machined in two parts and bonded?
It’s absolutely gorgeous, in any case. I just wonder if it’s any good.
Where did you come across those pics?
Yojiro sent them to me. Submitted work directly from designers is always welcome here.
Yojiro managed to keep an elegant and dynamic look, which is amazing when using wood. Any idea of the weight?
Thank you for your comments.
This proposal is about the shape of the frame and the handle mainly which doesn’t concern what material it’s made out of. The maximum comfort can be put into practice by wood.
It is all hand made. The down tube and seat tube are hollowed with plenty of thickness left not to disturb the surface when planed too much. As a result, it weights about 14kg in total. The thickness is uncertain though, I guess it’s about 6-12mm. It is bonded the half and half into one.
Beautiful bicycle! We would love to see more pictures, especially construction to see how this was done.
The wheels are made similarly to those of ancient Egyptian design, except spokes were increased to six from four.
As this concept is essentially a sculpture I can understand some of the shortcomings. That aside though this design is that of a time trial bike that no one is going to ride for comfort riding. And the conflicting points of the comfort of wood and the desire to have short chainstay/seatstay members for increased stiffness is confusing — more fleixble chainstays will make for a more comfortable ride. On top of this there is no front brake, no brake levers, no front derailleur (but there is an installed shifter), no cable routing, and the seat is pitching far too low. The trail on the fork is completely inappropriate for the frame though it would be at home a comfort cruiser. Beautiful, well-made, and crafted with love and passion, but very much lacking functional considerations. An no one wants a 14kg TT bike.
Can I have one?
The pedal spoils the whole look.
Aw this is amazing !
Houlala ! Magnifique !
The wheels remind me of the Egyptian chariot wheels featured recently on PBS. They were also contrcuted in several parts, with a hub added at the center and bound together with a rim that held them in compression.
see: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/pharaoh-chariot.html