Who would ride these (walnut) wheels? - Design Bureau

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Who would ride these (walnut) wheels?

Wednesday, March 14th, 2012

I've seen more than couple eye-grabbing modern wooden bikes pop up on the web recently, but something about Lagomorphdesign's grabbed me. I decided to contact the designer Seth Deysach to see why he's putting so much sweat into walnut two-wheelers.

Lagomorph's Seth Deysach found his way to making wooden bikes via the long trail of bike shop management, cooking school, cooking professionally and of course, learning furniture making. Not exactly a short cut. " Furniture is easy to make functional but truly difficult to make well and beautiful. I took my lumps for about five years and learned the hard way how wood works," writes Deysach.

Now a professional furniture maker, Deysach showed his bike at the 2011 Object Society design show. The first flaw in most new wooden bikes that Deysach had seen, they were trying to be metal bikes. "Almost all wood bikes I've seen attempt to mimic the look and construction of a steel or carbon bike and from a furniture makers point of view, I saw only drawbacks to that. Wood is so different than metal and carbon that the types of joinery that people needed to use were at at best good-looking but prone to potential failure or simply functional, but crude and unrefined.  

Lagomorph's is made 2” x 2” sticks of American black walnut ("the King of woods," he says) and bridal jointed with "no hidden crap" holding it together. Being a bike nerd, he outfits his with the high-end parts: Phil Wood for the hubs and spokes, Paul Components break lever, White Industries drivetrain, Chris King headset, Mavic rims, WTB saddle, Thomson seatpost, and leather handlebar tape.  

In case you were wondering, as we were: Yes, you can ride it, but no, you can't leave it out in the rain.

The bike, first edition of 10 (frame, fork and stem), is $2750.00 from Lagomorphdesign.com.

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