FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- Two Colorado State University graduate students say they have created the bicycle of the future -- an organic bicycle made primarily from bamboo grown on plantations in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Jacob Castillo and John McKinney are both MBA candidates in CSU’s Global Social and Sustainability Enterprise program and co-founders of Panda Bicycles.

McKinney came up with the idea to create bamboo bicycles after making a trip to the Yucatan Peninsula as part of a summer program to build sustainable housing for Mexican villages. McKinney wanted to use bamboo to build the houses, but discovered that the species of bamboo that he had in mind was too small.

"I got back home from my summer trip and I was thinking, 'I wonder what we can do with this,' and I looked at my bike and thought, 'Why not make bamboo bikes?'" said McKinney.

It turns out the idea was not entirely new. A small number of bamboo bicycles have been designed as novelties or high-performance bicycles, often selling for anywhere between $2,000 and $10,000.

But McKinney and fellow student Castillo wanted to create a sustainable bamboo bicycle for everyday use, one that would retail for under $1,000.

After McKinney returned from Mexico, he partnered up with Castillo and founded Panda Bicycles. Using the strongest species of bamboo from Mexico, Castillo asked a friend to design a prototype. They claim the result is as strong as any steel bicycle.

"It has a similar strength to steel, a similar weight to aluminum and the ride characteristics of carbon fiber," said Castillo. "The icing on the cake is that there is a sustainability factor to it as well."

Castillo said bamboo is known for growing extremely quickly and sucking up carbon dioxide pollution as it grows, a marked contrast to steel bicycle manufacturers, which produce carbon dioxide.

McKinney said their bamboo bicycles are designed using some steel for handlebars and to connect the bicycle tubing, but that the carbon footprint of the bicycles is greatly reduced because they are made primarily of bamboo. The bamboo from the bicycles can also be composted.

"The manufacturing process, the sourcing of the materials, the design of the bicycle and eventually the entire lifecycle of the bike has been taken into consideration and designed for sustainability," said Castillo.

McKinney and Castillo said the bicycles cannot compete with expensive, high-performance carbon fiber bicycles. They were designed for basic use and leisure riding. Castillo said early strength and longevity tests have been promising, but the bicycles will need to undergo additional durability testing before going to market.

McKinney and Castillo hope to put the bicycles on the market by October. They expect they will retail for $850.