We were surprised by this wood bicycle displayed in the airport in Portland, Oregon. First, we thought of the cardboard bike Stephanie posted last week. Then, we realized this bicycle is a thing of beauty. Here's a better photograph...

It's made by Renovo, and there's a small manifesto about the material properties of wood on their website. If you haven't seen the bridge in Norway that's made entirely out of wood, take a look.

The gist is this: the way we typically use wood -- in large chunks clumsily nailed together -- doesn't take advantage of its incredible strength. In fact, the Renovo bicycle is hollow. We'd like to see some of this engineering know-how put to work. Maybe the simple 2 x 4 stud can be improved with similar techniques.