Interview to Thomas Kanters about the FLAXED Bicycle Thomas Kanters is the owner and designer of the FLAXED Bicycle. Thomas graduated in Graphic and also Spatial Design. As a designer he focusses on materials, shapes and compositions. His passion for cycling is arisen from track cycling, where you have only one gear with which you need to make as much distance as fast as you can in a very short time. © Thomas Kanters Can you describe us briefly what the bicycle you developed is made of? The frame of the Flaxed Bicycle is made of flax fibers mats combined with GreenPoxy which is a resin made of 50% biological materials. Why did you decide to specifically develop a bicycle made of flax fibers? I wanted to build a bicycle that could be 100% compostable. Also, just like carbon, flax fibers mats have the same form freedom. What is the environmental advantage of your bicycle compared to a common bicycle? Flax of course is 100% biological. However, the strength of 100% biological resin is something that needs further developing, because it is not yet strong enough to be used for building something like a bicycle frame. At this point in time, we need to add other fabrics to strengthen the frame, which makes it less compostable. The future will point out if this bike frame could be completely compostable. What was the biggest challenge you faced when developing the bicycle? It was very difficult to build the bike frame, because I wanted the frame to be made out of one part. The bridge at the back wheel was a fragile part that needed to be locked while the whole bike was vacuum packaged. Why did you decide to study a subject related to renewable resources? I studied at the art academy AKV | St. Joost Breda. Sustainability was one of the two main subjects regarding our graduation project and I am a passionate track cyclist, so I decided to build a 100% sustainable bicycle frame. What aspects or materials of your bike do you foresee to being used in actual manufacturing in the near future? With a second version of the FLAXED Bicycle, I want to show what sustainable materials are capable of by getting a professional track cyclist involved and test it. Also, I would like to further develop the production process of the frame towards the commonly known production processes of composite bicycle frames, so that the industry can more easily adopt the components I used in the FLAXED Bicycle. What suggestion would you give to young people and fellow students who want to work in renewable resources and bio-based products? If you have a dream just follow it. They told me to build only a saddle of biological materials but that was not challenging enough for me so I decided to build a complete frame. Keywords biobased, bioeconomy, bicycle, sustainability Countries Netherlands
