Softly carved wooden wheels hang under a thick plywood frame, wrapped in a thin layer of rubber, and with holes gouged out in place of spokes. It is, to the joyful disbelief of the people Kidus Tesera bumps into on his travels from John o\u2019 Groats to Dover, a bike made nearly entirely out of wood.<\/p>\n
And, to everyone\u2019s continued disbelief, it’s actually bearable to ride, too. \u201cI\u2019ve been on it for a long time,\u201d he tells Cycling Weekly. “I feel like I\u2019m riding a normal bike.” Though Tesera \u2013 a mere mortal after all \u2013 ultimately concedes: \u201cIt was horrible [to ride] at the start.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Tesera has taken a year out of university to build the bike, giving himself until the end of September to finish his trip to the bottom of England (he’s currently in Nottingham). The project began in Leeds, where Tesera had booked out a space in a community workshop.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n At the time, he says, he was looking for something different, a way to escape the high-energy buzz of London for something he still can\u2019t put his finger on entirely.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just boils down everything I believe in,\u201d he says. “I’m a biochemistry student, and I’m interested in sustainable production. I’m also Ethiopian, so I believe in accessible production, which is using materials that are around you to innovate and create things.”<\/p>\n Back in the workshop, when the idea to build the bike was still only that, Tesera was introduced to a group of woodworkers, artists and makers who all pitched in to help the project.<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest problem I had was creating the wheels, more than the frame,\u201d he says, momentarily back in the happy collaborative chatter of the workshop.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you look at the bike, you can see the shortcuts I\u2019ve taken, the simple mechanisms I\u2019ve tried to use. For example, I don\u2019t have any air in the tyres, I can\u2019t change gears, and then the way I designed the wheels was, like, the easiest way to design a wooden wheel. Normally you would have to create spokes around the middle hub, like a normal metal wheel, but when I tried that, it was too complicated for my mind, because I\u2019ve never done woodworking before.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember leaving the workshop after trying to make a spoke and failing. I left the workshop for an hour or two, and I was thinking, what is the most caveman way of making a wheel? And then I thought: I\u2019m going to create a circular shape, and I\u2019m going to cut three holes to reduce the weight of it. I\u2019m going to sculpt away and create a wheel. This was the simplest solution I could come up with, because I don\u2019t have any engineering knowledge.”<\/p>\n Simplifying the process, he stresses, is “ultimately what allowed it to function, and come this far”.<\/p>\n As the last piece was fitted onto Tesera\u2019s wooden masterpiece, a workshop member floated the idea of cycling it the length of the UK. Tesera promptly booked a train ticket to Scotland and started out on his trip south.<\/p>\n As the journey progressed, the bike collected new objects, too. At one point, the blunt handlebars were replaced by softly curling horns, additions that caught the attention of passers by, already fascinated by the wooden spectacle.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople were so lovely,\u201d he tells me. \u201cThey were so intrigued by what I was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs that bloody wood?\u201d One man said in a video on Tesera\u2019s Instagram, mouth open in disbelief. \u201cGet that on Dragons’ Den, bro!\u201d another passer-by shouted.<\/p>\n Once the journey from Scotland had begun, Tesera relied on the kindness of strangers <\/a>to propel him south, staying in the homes or gardens of people he met along the way.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Dalwhinnie, there was a storm. At that time, I didn\u2019t have anywhere to stay. I\u2019d arrived late, and they offered me the community hall, and invited me into their homes. I just felt like I was part of their family.\u201d<\/p>\n Teserea met more people as he moved on from the Scottish Highlands<\/a>, and his experiences of everyday kindness multiplied. Still, as he travelled through rural areas, with only sporadic shops to gather food from, he had to resort to asking locals for provisions. “Many people that I met were living alone most of the time,” he remembers. \u201cI\u2019ll be the only person they would have spoken to maybe in a week or so.”<\/p>\n It was then, on leaving Scotland, that Tesera decided he would dedicate his ride to charity.<\/p>\n The two organisations he chose are Age UK and Mekedonia, a charity based in Ethiopia that provides housing, food and medical care to the elderly, homeless and disabled across the country.<\/p>\n \u201cAge UK works towards giving people companionship, and a good social life. I was hoping that something good could happen if I did that,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n One thing about Tesera, obvious to his many Instagram followers and even in our short phone call, is that he cares, deeply. He cares about the people he meets, about the people he\u2019s yet to meet, and about the way we move through the world we share.<\/p>\n In one video from June 2024, a studious Tesera escapes the library to deliver a letter through a local\u2019s door after seeing their garden unused. Musing on the dislocation many of us feel with the natural world, and the neighbours we share it with, he invites the homeowner to join him and their neighbours for a walk the following week, a chance to connect. “If you don’t know people you can deeply interact with, the outdoors don’t have the power to keep you out for long,” he penned.<\/p>\n Tesera operates under another name on Instagram: King Raphael, a character invented at the creation of his \u201csteed\u201d. He is making his way through Scotland and England, \u201cconquering\u201d as he goes, occasionally dressed up in cape and crown \u2013 made of wood, of course.<\/p>\n I ask Tesera what the pillars of the Kingdom of Raphael would be. \u201cI was hoping you could tell me,\u201d he replies, still unable to articulate what exactly is powering his two-wheeled quest south.<\/p>\n Trawling back through his Instagram posts, the kernel of his beginnings sings out, loudly. It\u2019s Tesera, riding his wooden bike, videos of the people he\u2019s met so far on his journey flashing at intervals across the screen, and his mission here is clear.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m riding a protest made of wood, against a world made of plastic and steel,\u201d he recites in his signature eloquence.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery mile I ride is a rejection of comfort, speed and the normal way of doing things. This wooden bike isn\u2019t practical, it\u2019s proof that imagination is stronger than industry and that we don\u2019t have to accept the world we were handed. The storms, the cold, the stares from strangers, none of it really matters. What matters is showing that one person, with their hands and a vision can challenge an entire system.<\/p>\n “This isn\u2019t just a journey, it\u2019s a rebellion on wheels. It\u2019s a question: what kind of future do we want to build?\u201d<\/p>\n For Tesera, at least, that future is one of resourcefulness and companionship. He sees something many only glimpse on two-wheeled adventures \u2013 the good nature of people, the ability to build things from scratch and to simply see how far, with our hands and a vision, we can get.<\/p>\n Tesera is asking people to donate to Age UK<\/a> and Mekedonia<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Softly carved wooden wheels hang under a thick plywood frame, wrapped in a thin layer of rubber, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-127625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}