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Jul 1, 2007

"The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a building filled with archaic furniture. Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it." --Dee Hock

Bamboo Bicycles: A New Way To Pedal

Ten years ago, Luna the dog was gnawing on a piece of bamboo growing behind Craig Calfee's bicycle shop in California. Luna was adept at crushing wooden sticks with her powerful jaws. But the best she could manage with the hard, round stalks of bamboo was a tooth mark or two. Calfee wondered: If bamboo was strong enough to withstand Luna, why couldn't it be a bicycle frame? Calfee since has built 91 bamboo bikes, and last week he was due to arrive in the West African nation of Ghana, intent on making them for the disadvantaged. Calfee is no ordinary bicycle-shop owner. He's considered one of the country's elite bike builders, someone who creates machines for the likes of Greg LeMond, the first American to win the Tour de France.