Blog

Hey, I’m back.  I had dropped off the face of the planet there for a bit- that is to say that I have been using facebook a lot lately- speaking of, if you’re on facebook and not a fan check us out at http://www.facebook.com/PandaBikes.

So, we finally have more tee shirts in and they are pretty cool. Panda John and the good folks at Go West in Fort Collins really came through.  We have a few styles and they’re all from American Apparel. We also have great cycling socks and hats.  The socks are from the Sock Guy and aren’t just for cycling.  They’re good for everything and I wear mine on casual Friday to the office.  The hat is a four panel cycling hat that fits underneath a helmet.

You can check them all out at our shop.  They make good Christmas presents as my family will soon find out.

We sold out of our initial run of 25 special edition bikes.   The boys and I will be busy building bikes throughout December and hopefully you’ll see some around town.   If you don’t see any around town, you can place an order now to get one in the Spring.  It would make a great wedding gift (hint, hint).

Finally, if you’re in Fort Collins and fancy a drink with a beautiful view, check out Coop’s (Coopersmith’s) one of our bikes will be hanging out there soon.  The bike is bummed, it’d rather be on the road so check it out, cheer it up, and have a beer for it.

Well the boys were on bicycleradio.com on last night, and while they didn’t know about  Panda Mating habits in captivity, they did know about Fort Collins Micro-Breweries.  It was a great show last night and if you want to listen, click here.  The show was on 7/13/09 and they are about 42 minutes in but if you are a cycling fan the whole show was great.  Bicycle Radio also podcasts on iTunes so check them out.

On a quick Tour note, wow who knew Andorra was so exciting?

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Well, it’s July and while yesterday commemorated the founding of our country, something else happened yesterday…  The Tour de France started.  For bike folks, this is just an amazing time of the year.  The other Grand Tours (the Giro and the Vuelta) are incredibly big amazing races but le Tour is the biggest.  As such bike companies make sure their newest technology is in the race (we decided to skip this year’s Tour de France but we are aiming for Tour de Fat).  Nowhere was this more evident than the time trial yesterday.  Cancellara crushed the field on this bike.  It is incredibly fast but using it to commute would be like driving an F1 car to the office.

I’ve been writing about the different aspects of The One for a little while now and I wanted to write a little more on its purpose.  We keep talking about the bike being a commuter bike.  At its most simple a commuter bike’s purpose is to get you from point A to point B and often times people refer to this bike as their “Townie.”  The most important characteristic of a townie is its reliability.  The One is a relatively simple bike which means there is not a lot that can go wrong with it.  The coaster brake and internal hub are pretty much maintenance free.  The internal hub also enables us to use  a very strong chain that will not need to be replaced often if at all.  The cyclocross style wheels will allow riders to use relatively burly tires (even metal studded tires for riding in the snow are available) that are less likely to flat than tires on road racing bikes.  The One will get you to work and school- but hopefully much more fun places too- with no problems

For any folks on Facebook, check us out at http://www.facebook.com/PandaBikes and see video of The One in action!

In the mean time, Cancellara thinks his team can hold the yellow jersey until the Team Time Trial (an amazing race within the race and very much worth watching) on Tuesday and it’s on right now… Happy Fourth of July and enjoy le Tour.

I do wish that we had invented the proverbial wheel on Bamboo Bikes, but the fact of the matter is that we did not.  Other folks are out there making some pretty incredible machines that have an equally incredible price tag.  In my last post I linked to an article that compared owning a bamboo bike to owning a Bulgari watch.  I don’t  own a Bulgari- though my birthday is next week- and we are not making haute-culture bikes for decoration, our bikes are meant to be ridden.

Panda is making a really cool-looking bike that will reliably get you where you want to go in the city- and it won’t cost an arm and a leg.  Think of us as the Swiss Army watch of bikes, a little more expensive than a Swatch, a lot more affordable than a Bulgari but it will keep good time and look cool.

We are working getting comments posted in a timely manner.  I am amazed at the amount of spam that get submitted under comments.  Please post comments, we’ll get them out there.  We want to hear from you and talk about bikes.  Send us questions, comments, and shout outs and we’ll respond.  Thanks!

Wow this is exciting, the word is getting out about Panda.  This morning we made the Canadian Newspaper, The Star (http://www.thestar.com/article/655642) and tonight the good looking founders will be on Denver’s Channel 7 (http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/19852471/detail.html).  We are really excited!  Jacob and a couple other bamboo bike folks were interviewed for The Star but those other folks are selling bikes to Hollywood stars and Saudi Sheiks for thousands of dollars.  We are bringing bamboo bikes to the people, The One will sell for well under $900.

Back to the important stuff… The bike itself.  So, we don’t want to build a bike that’s just bamboo, we want to sell the best commuter bike out there.  To this end we decided to use cyclocross wheels.  For folks that don’t know about cyclocross, imagine a very sturdy road bike used off road (check out the “how to” section http://www.velonews.tv/ to see a cyclocross pro in action).  The wheels used in cyclocross are 700s and very sturdy.  I have done some things on my cross bike that have hurt me but my wheels are still good and true (for Fort Collins People, I descended the A-trail rather quickly- it was dumb, really dumb).  The wheels will be faster than mountain bike wheels but more durable than road wheels.  For the super commuters, these wheels will even fit studded tires to enable you to ride in the snow.

Well that’s it for now but things are moving very quickly here at Panda.  Keep checking back we are planning to get some tee shirts and other soft goods on the web site soon and remember Panda Bikes are 100% Panda free (thanks Chris!)

Well, it’s getting to be bike riding season again.  Here in DC we’ve been getting some rides in around town and even out in the “mountains” (sorry East Coast folks, but when you move from Colorado, the Appalachians just seem like hills).  My townie bike is a fixed gear, and riding around DC on has been fun except for the hills.  It can be a bit of a challenge and I have found myself thinking about how nice a couple gears would be.  But I don’t want a derailleur or a cassette to worry about.  The solution… an Internal Hub!

So many of you no doubt saw that coming.  Internal hubs are still relatively unpopular/unknown in the states but are popular in other places and with good reason.  The “gearing” is located within the hub.  From the outside it just looks like an oversized hub.  Here is a link to a video for an exceptionally complicated internal hub. The One will use a simpler hub but the principles are the same.  There are significant advantages to an internal hub.  First, they are almost maintenance-free, I take that “almost” back.  It is maintenance free.  Second, you can shift will sitting still, if you were stopped at a stop light you can shift, unlike a derailleur/cassette setup.  For a commuter, an internal hub is ideal.

Panda's first bamboo bike prototype.

Well, it has been a while since I wrote in but it has been a busy couple weeks.  First, our prototype made its debut at collegiate nationals in Fort Collins, CO.  There were bike geeks aplenty and lots of compliments and interest- Thanks Complimenters and Interested Parties!  But a bigger thanks goes to the people that supported us in trying to get The One (a.k.a. Frankenstein) there.  First and foremost our engineer William Lord Reeves, ok we call him “Bill” but his “formal name” just sounds as awesome as he has been.  We also want to thank the good people at Brave New Wheel, one of the best bike shops in the Fort, especially when you want to get something fixed.  Finally, thanks to the GSSE program at CSU for supporting bike culture and sustainability by putting together the community ride on Saturday and letting us be part of it.

So last time it was coaster brakes (remember, they’re sweet) this time it’s our frame.  The frame is made of bamboo tubing with steel lugs, echoing the steel lugged frames of the past.  The Calcutta Bamboo we are using is amongst the strongest in the world.  Despite its strength, the bamboo absorbs a lot of the road keeping your backside comfortable and precluding the need for bike shorts- Jacob, you should still wear bike shorts, like mustaches  they only look good on some people.  For people used to riding very rigid frames The One will be the most comfortable bike you’ve ever ridden.   For folks that are newer to bikes and bike culture, do not ask a bike geek about lugs.  Lugs are the steel joints that hold tubes together on older steel bikes.  For a lot of us, lugs represent the high point in beautiful bike design (check out the frames at http://www.fixedgeargallery.com/ to see what I mean).  We specially designed our lugs to work with bamboo (thanks again Bill!) and now when you ride The One, even cynical bike geeks, will give you props for riding on lugs.

Photo of our current Poster Ad.

Hello blogosphere/cyclists/family members who don’t care about bikes really but have to read this out of familial duty (hey mom!)/and most importantly soon to be Panda Bike Owners. My name is Mark and I am one of the three guys that founded Panda Bikes. I thought I ought to introduce myself before writing about our bikes. I have been a bike enthusiast for about as long as I can remember. I get it from my Dad, who used to take me out for rides on the back of his Le Jeune in a bike seat with a bell but no helmet. In retrospect I can’t believe my mom let him do that. In the years since, I have continued to ride as much as possible and have damaged various body parts to prove it. Today, my fiance and I live in DC and keep six bikes around the apartment (in accordance with my dearly held belief that the optimum number of bikes =n+1 whereas n is the number of bikes you currently own).

Over the coming weeks I’ll be writing about different aspects of The One and The Natural. Today,The Natural and coaster brakes! Almost anyone reading this will remember back in the day when they first learned how to ride a bike (in my case a black “bmx” bike), you could coast but if put any back pressure on the peddles it acted as a brake. You could make really long skid marks by going fast and locking up the back wheel. After a while, I got a new bike that had caliper brakes and quit thinking about coaster brakes. When we started conceptualizing The Natural, I got to thinking about coaster brakes and did some research. It turns out that the coaster brake is near ideal for a commuter bike. It is very nearly maintenance free, it works in all weather conditions, and the lack of cables make the bike look cool.

http://www.pandabicycles.com/

Introducing Panda’s first bicycles – The One and The Natural.  Each bike is a sleek synthesis of design simplicity and an aesthetically pleasing emphases of organic material. As a quickly replenishing organic material, which sequesters carbon from the atmosphere, bamboo is more environmentally sustainable than alternatives. Bamboo isn’t only a better choice in terms of environmental sustainability, however. It also provides unique performance advantages over traditional materials. Bamboo can be stronger than steel and due to its unique vibration-dampening properties, offers a smoother, more comfortable ride than carbon or aluminum. The One is modeled after a comfortable, yet aggressive cyclo-cross geometry, enabling the bike to withstand the physical forces of even the most rugged urban commutes. Each bike features long sleek stretches of exposed bamboo, the utility and durability of a Shimano 3-speed internal hub, and a stylish comfortable ride like no other. These Bikes are simple, sleek and durable – perfect for the urban commuter.