Hoopy: World's most stylish wooden bicycle

French boat builder supremos, Wooden Widget, have thrown light on the dark art of frame building by launching the Hoopy - a self-build design that's a strong contender for world's most stylish wooden bicycle.

The Hoopy takes around ten days to build and no specialist equipment is required. In fact, the main tools required are a jigsaw and a drill - both toolbox basics. The frame can be marked, cut out, glued and made ready for varnish in just 2 days. The frame alone weighs just three kilos. There are some parts which must be bought new (about £100 worth) but the rest can be bought secondhand or salvaged. A simple Hoopy could be made for as little as £250 or as much as 5 times that.

Designer at Wooden Widget, Benjy, told us: "It not only looks fab with the Ghisallo wooden rims and fat brown tyres, but it rides so nicely. I am amazed at how comfy , swift and smooth it is. This bike has taken about 80 hours to build, which compared to some wooden frames is super fast."

"Amazingly the Hoopy seems to fit almost all adults. Just the other day a 6'4" rider tried the Hoopy said it was fine. Not one person has said they wished the seat was higher or lower, although it can be cut down or raised during the build."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOp58Ur-VOQ

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"The leather has a practical reason for being there as well as an aesthetic one. It protects the forks from damage. The original Hoopy has been in constant use since I built it and must have done about 500 km by now."

Plans include step-by-step instructions and over 200 pictures. To offset the carbon cost of the project, Wooden Widget plant five trees for every set of plans sold. For more information, visit woodenwidget.com/hoopy

Win plans to build the Hoopy wooden bicycle

If you fancy the challenge of building your own bicycle, you can be one of the first people to receive the instruction plans for the Hoopy. Simply leave a comment at the bottom of the page and we will pick a name next week.

Once you've built a Hoopy, you can move onto something for it to tow. The same company sells plans for the Foldavan - a lightweight DIY bicycle caravan that collapses for easy storage and towing.

Wooden Widget produces a range of collapsible boats and sailing dinghies that can be towed behind a bicycle and the Foldavan shares many of the same design principles.

Built from wood, carbon fibre and reinforced PVC cloth, the teardrop-shaped Foldavan has three modes. When being stored, or transported on a car roof rack, it collapses flat. While being towed by a bicycle, it opens to 60 cm - about the same as the width as most handlebars. Once at its destination, it takes less than five minutes to transform the Foldavan into camping mode. Fully-extended, the caravan measures 1.2 m wide and offers over one metre of headroom.

The Foldavan weighs only 30 kg and has a low centre of gravity, which means it can negotiate fairly rough terrain – in high winds, the sides can be unzipped to let the wind pass through.

https://youtu.be/wJtde3xz5Tc

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The Foldavan trailer is available for £30 as a set of plans. It takes about 50 hours to build a Foldavan. The materials needed are easy to find in varying qualities to suit any budget - A Foldavan can be built for next to nothing using reclaimed timber and secondhand parts.

The carbon footprint of the Foldavan is small because all the materials can be found locally or salvaged. Furthermore, the company plants five trees every time it sells a set of plans.

The ethical choice

The ETA was established in 1990 as an ethical provider of green, reliable travel services. Over 30 years on, we continue to offer cycle insurance , breakdown cover and mobility scooter insurance while putting concern for the environment at the heart of all we do.

The Good Shopping Guide judges us to be the UK’s most ethical provider.

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