Condemned Urban Trees Turned Into Rideable Bicycles

Photo courtesy: Spots Unknown via TreeHugger.com

Sometimes an idea comes along that makes me smile all over. This is that type of idea. I'll bet there are many people who would like to ride on the tree they used to swing from as a child.

There's no doubt that we have a definite soft spot for wooden bicycles, but these hand-crafted bikes made from condemned city trees give these otherwise stylish bikes a more poignant history than you might imagine. Made by San Francisco-based carpenters Bill Holloway and Mauro Hernandez of Masterworks Woodworking, the material for these beautiful vehicles come from 'unsafe' trees that have met an untimely end -- often from family properties, now inherited by grown children who remember playing in them.

Photo courtesy: Urban Tree to Bicycle from Spots Unknown on Vimeo.

The point, says Holloway, is to keep the cherished tree alive, even as it's condemned:

With the urban wood, we know where it comes from, and we know a bit of the history of the tree so you get a story with it. [The grown children] remember playing in that tree in the yard as a kid and you know, now their parents have passed, so they now own the house and the tree is dying or unsafe for some reason. And they think it's cool that we can come and salvage that tree and give it a second life and give it back to them as something that they can ride, so that it continues on.

Both Holloway and Hernandez are self-taught, and through their professional practice attempt to maintain old-school traditions of working the wood by hand as much as possible. It's a great way to make functional and creative works of art, out of something that would have otherwise been relegated to memory or wood chips.

Check out the video!