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Jakarta Post

Can wooden bikes prevent global warming?

Ready to ride: Didi Diarsa Aldiana, 40, stands near a bike that he made out of rubber wood

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Sat, November 12, 2016

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Can wooden bikes prevent global warming?

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span class="inline inline-center">Ready to ride: Didi Diarsa Aldiana, 40, stands near a bike that he made out of rubber wood. It is named a Kayuh wooden bike and sells for Rp 5 million (US$380). (Courtesy of Didi Diarsa Aldiana)

Didi Diarsa Aldiana, who lives in Depok, West Java, said the reason he made a bicycle from old, unproductive rubber trees was that he believed in climate change.

For too long, he said, farmers had been burning unproductive trees, a practice that could contribute to a greenhouse effect in the atmosphere. He wondered if he could use the old rubber trees for other purposes.

“Unproductive rubber trees, which do not produce latex anymore, can actually be used as the basic material for bicycles. However, many rubber farmers do not know this and choose to burn such trees instead,” Didi told The Jakarta Post in Jakarta on Wednesday.

“Burning trees means increasing the amount of carbon dioxide emissions. It eventually harms the environment.”

Indonesia has the biggest area of rubber plantations in the world, amounting to 3.4 million hectares, according to the Industry Ministry.

Some of the areas are home to trees that are more than 15 years old and no longer produce latex.

To take advantage of old and unproductive rubber trees, Didi began to produce Kayuh wooden bicycles, using timber from rubber trees as the main material. He has been in the business for about six months.

Didi admitted that it was not easy to make bicycles out of wood because the material was rigid and hard to bend, whereas he needed to make curved bodies for bicycle frames.

Therefore, the father of five said he had invested in studying how to make curved wooden forms, with the help of a researcher from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), until he found a satisfactory wood-bending technique.

“I spent up to Rp 50 million [US$3,800] in the past six months to find such a technique,” he said, adding that he had also conducted a study about the utilization of rubber trees.

The 40-year-old man explained he had recently found out that rubber latex could be used as an adhesive in wood bending. He is now studying how to make other items, including bicycle handlebars, rims and seats, using the trees.

“As long as I can maximize the use of rubber trees in the manufacturing of bicycles, I will do it,” said Didi, who had previously been in the furniture business for about six years.

Another challenge of making wooden bicycles was the city’s lack of quality carpenters who had mastered wood-bending techniques, he added.

Didi said he needed to train the people he hired to become wooden bike makers. “It is another task for me,” he said, adding that he only employed one bike maker at present. As a result, he could only produce one bike per day. Should he expand the business, he would invest more in machinery.

So far, he has produced around 20 wooden bicycles, which are sold for Rp 5 million each. Buyers not only come from Greater Jakarta but also from other areas across the country, such as Bali and Medan in North Sumatra.

“Some of the buyers are researchers. I think they are eager to know how wood can be used as the raw material for bicycles.”

In addition to rubber trees, Didi also uses a small amount of other woods originating from Indonesia, like mahogany, sungkai and sonokeling, as coatings for his Kayuh bicycles, as he said rubber tree timber was rather plain.

All of the wood Didi uses for his bikes comes from forests in areas such as Lampung and Jambi provinces or Purwakarta in West Java.

“I combine the country’s natural potentials into one innovation, a wooden bike,” he told the Post. (vny)

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