Amber Waves of Bikes

     Lately the press, and some bike shops, and manufacturers have made a really big deal about the idea of "sustainable" bikes.  The biggest deal has been over the the bamboo bikes which were being touted by their makers as a "sustainable" bicycle.  The frames could be literally regrown into an unlimited number of new bikes and replaced and developed indefinitely.

These were advertised as a really cool alternative to steel and carbon bikes which were full of all sorts of evil stuff, and would be dangerous to delicate

young people who are changing our environment.
   Now Schwinn has jumped on the band wagon with a sustainable flax fiber.   It is really nice looking and has an extra special feature.  It has a light system inside the frame so the frame lights up (yep, it's thin enough to show light through it),

but they claim it, like bamboo, is the greatest thing since carbon fiber.
   The bamboo growers finally admitted that the epoxies, paint, glue and components can't be grown in a garden,  wheat field or petri dish so are probably not all that sustainable.  Since a frame probably weighs around 3-4 lbs, it means that 75-80% of the bike is not the least bit environmentally healthy, but what does that mean to a well meaning yuppie.
   I'm all for these experiments and maybe one of them will prove useful and not just a novelty, but it would be nice if the manufacturers, promoters and advertisers would be honest about what they offer.  These are like  electric cars, which are touted as a solution but only offer a lesser evil.  A lesser evil is good, but please, let's call it what it is. Like the bamboo bike, electric cars might be nice, they offer less emissions, less fuel consumption but problems of their own, in the form of thousands of pounds of heavy metals to kick down the road.
   If the sell job is effective, and I doubt it will be, we'll see new bling

on Chevy Volts at the club rides.