What do you use your bicycle to power?

[Ana]

Generator hubs and lights aside, do you use your bicycle to generate power anything else?

I am just curious what kinds of things you power with your bicycle and how you do it. At our annual art fair, we have a station where you can blend your own smoothie by powering the blender through a bicycle

I would love to hear about other instances

[Tri Girl]

Ed Begley Jr. makes toast with his bike power.

I just use my bike to power me forward. I wish I could think of some cool way to store all the power generated and then use it at the house later. Kinda like solar energy being stored. I'm sure the technology is out there...

[Blueberry]

I really wish I could store the excess energy from my ECT sessions. My trainer gets HOT!

CA

[redrhodie]

I wish I could think of some cool way to store all the power generated and then use it at the house later. Kinda like solar energy being stored. I'm sure the technology is out there...

I've had a similar idea too! I think it would be great if a gym could be designed produce electricity with the power generated from the equipment. I even have a name "the powerstation". Unfortunately, I have no idea how to build it.

The owners of the company I worked for told me the holes in the gemstone beads we used were drilled by pedal power (in India).

[Thorn]

I thought I'd read about a gym that did or was going to hook up their stationary bikes to the grid. Don't know where.

Kurt Kinetic was talking about marketing a generator that would hook up to the Kinetic trainer. They were expensive and were really just battery chargers, but we were seriously considering it to keep the charge on the sump pump back up battery fully charged.

[Ana]

I thought I'd read about a gym that did or was going to hook up their stationary bikes to the grid. Don't know where.

Kurt Kinetic was talking about marketing a generator that would hook up to the Kinetic trainer. They were expensive and were really just battery chargers, but we were seriously considering it to keep the charge on the sump pump back up battery fully charged.

I found this article a while ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/fa...n%20gym&st=cse

[redrhodie]

Well, there you go! Another great idea already done (I had not read this article or heard of this gym before). Great minds (but their's obviously greater since they knew how to do it!).

[Tri Girl]

That's a great idea, redrhodie! I think you could still do it, even if someone else already did. Different markets, right?
DH came up with a great idea for an ice hat. I made a prototype and he uses it daily. We did some research to find out if it was patented, and it was- back in 1993. Oh well, a great idea is a great idea.

[redrhodie]

Wow, I just found my old post, written several months before the NY Times article, and even before the gym in the article was opened.

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showt...wer+station%22

I wonder if the gym is still operating and making money? Not that I have any ambition AT ALL! I'm sadly lacking in that.

[Aggie_Ama]

I think Mimi has a blender. Someone else too, Geonz? I can barely power moving me.

[OakLeaf]

I really wish I could store the excess energy from my ECT sessions.

HA! Took me a minute.

"Storing excess energy from her shock treatments? Is she getting them or administering them? Why would there be excess energy?"

[Blueberry]

HA! Took me a minute.

"Storing excess energy from her shock treatments? Is she getting them or administering them? Why would there be excess energy?"

*snort*

Nope - none other than the evil coach troy (for those who are not spinervals indoctrinated).

[shootingstar]

I've had a similar idea too! I think it would be great if a gym could be designed produce electricity with the power generated from the equipment. I even have a name "the powerstation". Unfortunately, I have no idea how to build it.

I believe a pro basketball player, Steve Nash, also business entrepreneur, has some of his fitness clubs where the energy from the stationary bikes powers something. When I heard that, was impressed.

I saw a bike powered grain grinder/separator at the market recently.

[OakLeaf]

A family in my area has a pedal-powered ice cream churn.

[GLC1968]

You can buy kits to transform your trainer into a power generator. I had visions of using one to charge up our Prius and then driving using pedal power (purely novelty - the concept is clearly not efficient).

We have a hand-crank grain mill, ice cream maker and cream separator....eventually, we plan to use the bike to operate all of them (which would be way more efficient than using the hand-crank). It's on our list of projects (unfortunately, this list is about three miles long....).