A bicycle made out of golden bamboo grown in Cornwall has just been completed in a workshop in east London, ready to take environmental champion Dr Kate Rawles the length of South America. 

In December the former University of Cumbria lecturer is to set off on The Life Cycle, a unique approach to environmental communication, raising awareness and inspiring positive action on biodiversity loss. 

The bike was made by Kate at the London-based Bamboo Bicycle Club from bamboo grown at the Eden Project.

The canes were cut from a large clump thriving just outside the world-famous Biomes. ’As far as we know this is the UK’s first home grown bicycle,’ Kate said.

She aims to cycle from Costa Rica in Central American to Cape Horn at the tip of South America - a distance of nearly 6,000 miles - following the spine of the Andes and exploring biodiversity: what it is, what’s happening to it, why this matters and, above all, what can be done to protect it. 

Dr Mike Maunder, Eden’s director of life sciences, said: ’Bamboo is an incredible resource for humanity - it protects millions of acres of watershed and as a sustainable crop provides building materials, food and fibre. At Eden we are working to replace polluting and wasteful single use water bottles with multi-use containers made from bamboo.’

A short film of the bamboo bicycle build, made by Lizzie Gilson, can be viewed at https://youtu.be/ByggVZb0iV4.