Bike for Power

A friend of mine has recently discovered a new found love for cycling. He considers cycling as the new golf. A former professor has also found love in cycling and for cycling. The University is now flanked with the “padyaks” of UPM which they rent out to students. Kids love to bike. It seems to me that I’m the only person who can’t ride a bike (problem with balancing). While I can’t bike hundreds like me work out on elliptical at home. It is biking minus the scenery and fresh air. I use the elliptical for physical fitness and distressing. People bike for plenty of reasons, to work out, to distress, to go green and conserve non-renewable energy. On that last point, Dahon a folding bike maker has recently unveiled Biologic Freecharge at a bike fair in Germany. The FreeCharge connects to any dyno hub on the market and charges a small gadget (iPod, cell phone, GPS unit, etc.) by transferring some of the energy your body generates pumping away on your bike to a high-capacity battery, which in turn directs a steady current to said small gadget

This product has received a lot of skepticism. People say that a person will have to bike a great distance and with great power in order to produce a considerable amount of energy. But I think the criticism is only for non enthusiasts. It may generate a small amount of power which is negligible on a single electric bill, but the collective energy savings will surely be significant (check how much energy is saved by using blackle.com). But imagine a gym full of spinners, if you attach this device to all spinners, the amount of energy you can harvest in a day will definitely be significant. If you can charge your ipod for free and without consuming non-renewable energy, that is already a contribution to our planet.

Sometimes the simplest, most obvious ideas are also the most brilliant.