from The San Jose Mercury News
Amazing wooden bicycles: beautiful, artistic, cool and recycled
By Bruce Newman
Bill Holloway and Mauro Hernandez pose with their hand built wooden bicycles at their San Jose, Calif. shop. The pair run Masterworks Wood and Design. Utilizing their skills in traditional wood working, they have created “art that you can ride”. (Gary Reyes/ Staff)
We are surprising slaves to conformity when it comes to the materials used to make things. An armoire made of bicycle parts? That would just be silly. But what about a bicycle made from an armoire? As it turns out, a bike hewn out of wood is a ride that some people pine for.
For the most part, form has rigidly followed function in bicycle design, with increasingly featherweight wonders forged out of materials ranging from aluminum to titanium. But a pair of San Jose woodworkers — one a self-taught genius, the other his interpreter to the real world — are turning recycled Honduran mahogany, cherry and maple hardwoods into cycling’s most splendid splinters.
At Masterworks Wood and Design, Bill Holloway, 49, and Mauro Hernandez, 33, are an artistic odd couple who have carved out a unique place for themselves in cycling’s peloton. They have built 10 bikes — all cruisers, with a pedicab in the works — that are made almost entirely of wood, and look like a Harley enthusiast’s idea of an elaborate weathervane. The original sapling in this fleet fleet, called the Defender, is their entry-level model and costs $5,500. Other models, such as the Interceptor, which has a pirate theme, and the Cherry Bomb, with flames carved out of wood, run as much as $7,500.
The bikes are considered “green” because the wood used to make them is not. The pair spend countless hours tracking down the most beautiful used woods they can find and repurposing them for their rolling works of art.