THE NEXT BIG THING?

Famed architect Frank Gehry designed furniture made of cardboard. So why can't someone use the stuff to make a bike?

Izhar Gafni

Izhar Gafni says he has produced a bike out of cardboard that can hold an adult.

Izhar Gafni, a self-taught engineer and bicycle enthusiast, says he has produced a bike that can easily hold an adult. In fact, Mr. Gafni says he rides it almost every day in Israel, where he lives. (On the Internet, there's a video of him riding the bike.) It has a drive train made of recycled plastic bottles and tires of recycled rubber. There are no gears, but the bike does have brakes.

Mr. Gafni, who has worked on developing an extraction system for pomegranate seeds, was inspired by a cardboard canoe and the Japanese techniques of origami. He hopes the bikes can be mass-produced cheaply in Africa and elsewhere without metal parts.