And Now There’s A Cardboard Bicycle

bicycle, cardboard, cheap, personal finance

An Israeli inventor has done something miraculous — he has cured cancer created a fully functional bicycle made almost totally from cardboard. Izhar Gafni, a longtime bicycling enthusiast and crazy inventor-type guy, put on his thinking cap and spent years figuring out how to construct a cheap yet durable mode of transportation that could change the way people in urban environments — especially ones in the developing world — get around. Gafni hopes the bikes will retail for around $20 and provide an affordable mode of transportation to people in traffic-choked cities.

How did he do it? Well, believe it or not, creating the bike was far more complex than gluing a bunch of old pizza boxes together. In addition to employing Origami techniques to make sure the cardboard could handle the weight of a rider — basically, folding cardboard makes it exceedingly strong — Gafni treated the bikes with a “secret formula” to make them water and fire proof. (You know, since your bike occasionally gets pelted by both rain and fireballs.) He then coated the cardboard with lacquer paint so it’d look cool and futuristic instead of like a $20 bike made from cardboard. Check out this video explaining how Gafni did it …