Israeli Izhar Gafni is a bicycle hobbyist, and he has made a bicycle entirely out of cardboard. It costs about $10 per bike to make.
“Basically, the idea is like Japanese origami,” Gafni says. Folding the cardboard on itself both shapes it and increases its strength, to the point where it can easily support up to 300 pounds of adult human. Here’s a video that shows his process — cutting out forms from cardboard an inch thick, rolling cardboard into tubes, coating it with resin so it won’t melt in the rain, and slapping on a coat of paint:
Then you just strap on your cardboard bike helmet and go!
This bike is the most beautiful object made out of cardboard that I’ve ever seen. It’s incredibly lightweight, apparently, and Gafni argues that at a retail price of $60 to $90, it’ll be cheap enough that it won’t really be worth stealing (or would be easily replaced if someone does take it). And riders can pretend they’re 6 again, when a cardboard box could be imagined into any vehicle. Only now, it’s for real.
