In an age of carbon fibre bikes master craftman and keen cyclist Ken Piper has created a rare thing of beauty out of a distinctly low-tech material – wood.
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The handcrafted rich polished wood bike frame is made from more than 150 pieces of Jarrah and Queensland Silver Ash, re-sawn and laminated for strength.
But hidden inside the skilfully hollowed out 6-millimetre-thick frame is a top-of-the-line Shimano Di2 electronic drive-train, which would be equally at home on the latest Tour de France competition bike.
"It really is the best of both worlds," Mr Piper said. "All the top teams use that sort of technology now, but the batteries andwires are all hidden in the frame."
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The ambitious project, which took six months to complete, combined Mr Piper's passions for cycling, design innovation and woodwork.
The joinery of the curved structure required precision and careful planning.
Concepts from boat building and carbon-fibre layering technology were incorporated into the design to ensure the final product was both strong but also lightweight.
"I wanted to build it to last," he said. "All the layers are laminated together and finished with more than seven coats of marine varnish, which adds to its strength."
The 59-year old designer works by day in the Science department of the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) and said now he wasn'tspending all his free time, evenings and weekends creating the bike, he had time to ride it.
"It's done about 1500 kilometres so far," he said. "It's a beautiful smooth ride and, importantly, it's solid."
Mr Pike rides the unique 9.7-kilogram bike to work from Weston twice a week rather than taking his motorbike but admitted that so far he'd been a fair-weather cyclist, stuck to the back routes and had never left the special prototype locked up on the street.
"I never let it out of my sight," he said.
"It's not the sort thing you'd take out and race on a Sunday, really it's one to ride down to the coffee shop and show off."
Work has already begun on a sleeker second model.
Mr Piper said would be lighter and have thinner, 5-millimetre walls.
"Maybe for the third, if I get to that, I will look at using strong but lighter-weight timbers," he said.
"I just want to build the second one, so this one can end up on the wall in my lounge room."
