very interesting and good read. it's incredible seeing organic materials being used for bikes that still have strength and rigidity. I wonder if climate or location rather would alter the lifespan of a frame like this. for example an area like wny where we face very cold temperatures, dry air and heavy snow in the winter months and hot temperatures, and very humid heavier air from the great lakes during the summer months. by no means am I hating on the idea I'm more or less just curious to how an organic material would hold up over time in seasonal climate changes.
My understanding from what I've read there hasn't been any issues with climate changes on Bamboo, and as far as I know all bamboo manufactures treat their frames with weatherproofing. Having said that I wouldn't ride it in the snow, but then again I wouldn't ride any of my bikes in the snow.
Last time I visited the Calfee site the Bamboo stuff was in the tech section, I didn't see it there now, but this is it:
http://www.calfeedesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/BikeMonkey12_Calfee.pdf The thing about the Calfee design is the entire frame looks natural, not bamboo tubes with some sort of lug, instead they use hemp twine giving the entire frame a natural look. Pretty cool.
The other thing I like about this bike, it looks like an artist crafted the bike by hand and not some computer and robots on a assembly line.