ABOUT PIM
WOODEN BICYCLES | HANDMADE | DUTCH DESIGN
In 2020 Pim, one of the founders of PiM.BiKE had created a frame from wood and outfitted with parts from an old bike. Why? Because he thought he could, and it worked. His first bicycle is still on the road. Richard, the other founder of PiM.BiKE noticed the bike and saw the potential to get into a nice market for wooden bicycles.
While brainstorming what to do, which market, etc, soon the aim was to build bicycles from reclaimed wood. Hardwood which was used for furniture, flooring, houses, and even bridges and rollercoasters were to be upcycled into wooden frames. The initial idea was also to re-use parts from old bicycles but due to the diversity of the parts this was not possible (unfortunately).
Just like other wooden bicycle manufacturers the aim was to develop a beautiful road bike, and we have build 2 of them, quite successful, but as others are already doing this and the stiffness of the bikes is insufficient to really get that trust feeling in your bike, we moved away from this idea. We went back to the original design, the city bike. The development took quite some time, as we both do this besides our regular jobs. The benefit is that we do not need the income and take our time to develop a city bike which is not only a great joy to drive and looks beautiful, it’s price should also be acceptable. And while we aim for limited production numbers a year, the margins do not have to be high.
In 2023 we have our 6th prototype, the 5th was tested according to ISO standards and the bottom bracket was too weak for our liking, now, the 6th prototype has been tested again with a redesigned bottom bracket, which makes all the difference.
And the reason why we are persistent is because we enjoy the development and design of bicycles, the shape is simple and the options in design are many, the possibilities with wood make for different bikes and searching for that piece of furniture or floor which has the wood we need makes the build special for us. And once the bike is finished and seeing it ride on the streets makes our work worthwhile.
Pim is master carpenter, Richard is technical director, we are both Dutch and have that love for bicycles, we are in the Netherlands, the bicycle country of the world.
And while we have two great frames today we will continue to improve our existing frames and develop new frames while meticulously work on that special bike you have ordered in our webshop. We aim for quality but as wood is a natural product it needs maintenance and care, and we cannot forsee every issue the wood may have inside. Still we believe we deliver a high end product with a life of 20 years or more and we hope you enjoy those many years on your PiM.BiKE.