Handcrafted Perserverance: Bamboo Bikes

Wes Cheney started biking when he was a kid in Springfield, Vt. Now he runs a unique business in Norfolk, Va. building and selling bamboo-frame bicycles.

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Wes Cheney spends much of his time in the storage area of East Coast Bicycles on Granby Street where it stretches to Ocean View. His enterprise there is not in the manufactured bikes stored for quick retrieval on the whim of a customer looking for a fix. The back room is Cheney’s studio for a different two-wheeled venture, VeloBamboo. “I’m not really sure how many of my own bikes are in the studio,” Cheney shrugged and looked around. He builds and sells bamboo bicycles. He harvests the bamboo himself from around Hampton Roads, sometimes just knocking on people’s doors. At least a hundred shoots of dusty bamboo haphazardly lay on shelving. Wes, just as dusty, surveys his studio with his hands on his hips. He boasts a 6-foot 4-inch frame and size 14 shoes. This combination, rare in the biking world, gave him the nickname “Yeti”. He whipped out a Seven Cities Rickshaw business card upon introduction, revealing that Yeti is indeed another name for himself. Bamboo bikes weren’t always Cheney’s occupation. It started as more of a pastime. “I kind of got thrown into it,” he recalled, “it was on my radar but it got shoved up by about five years because my job at Norfolk Southern came to an end.” Cheney had a desk job until he was 35, about five years ago. For a decade he was happy as the main freelance photographer for Norfolk Southern Railroad. When the time came for him to be promoted, it was done from the inside. He isn’t bitter, “I can understand from a human resource point of view why they did it. It saved them money.” He just realized it as an opportunity. He talked to his wife, Jennifer, who brought up the idea of starting a bamboo bicycle business. It was a great idea that combined his love of biking, its craftsmanship and his dedication to sustainable practices and community involvement. Cheney visited the Bamboo Bike Studio in Brooklyn, NY the summer before he lost his job and the North American Handmade Bike Show in Richmond later the same year. He encountered his first fully customized fixed-gear bamboo bike at the show and realized, “Hey, I could do this too.” For the last five years, Cheney has been striving to perfect the craft of customized bamboo bicycles. Wes Cheney started biking when he was a kid in Springfield, Vermont and has been biking throughout his life. He rode in the Boston Montreal Boston (BMB) race at the age of 32. It is a race of about 150 cyclists covering 700 miles in the span of ninety hours, from Boston to Montreal and back again. “We started at 4 a.m. in Boston and I had with me gallon sized zip lock bags composed of what I needed every twelve hours.” Cheney finished the race in 88 hours, tired but proud. “Its stupid perseverance like that, that I have learned from riding to help me start this company and keep it rolling.” VeloBamboo isn’t his only endeavor in the world of biking. He is also a founding member of Bike Norfolk, the tight community of dedicated cyclists in the area. Bike Norfolk organizes the community and pulls together efforts to create a city that welcomes biking. Cheney also earns a few quick bucks as the rickshaw driver, Yeti, with Seven Cities Rickshaw. “I don’t make much,” he says,” but I do actually get paid to ride a bike, and its really cool. “What job can you think of where you get to show up for work, watch osprey over-head, there’s dolphins playing in the Elizabeth river, and you’re having fun.” Cheney has more plans for VeloBamboo to get off the ground. He is moving his studio in December and will then work with some friends and get a really good business plan developed and start manufacturing cargo bikes and utilitarian city bikes at a faster pace. “Biking is like sex,” he said, “at first you do it for fun, then you do it for friends, then you do it for money,” and by the looks of the bike wheel tattooed on his right forearm, he wont be stopping any time soon. Handcrafted Perserverance: Bamboo Bikes in Norfolk Posted on 30 January 2013. Mace & Crown By: Allison Terres