Gyms put in some fancy equipment, no money being spend on capturing the clients energy though

Checking out the YMCA in spokane, some of the exercise equipment is impressive. They come with LCD video screens and other fancy bells and whistles. I have yet to see any of them generate energy though. Ideally all this equipment would generate electricity, why a gym owner has not yet thought of doing this eludes me. Theoretically with net-metering the gym owner could sell excess electricity back to the grid, and thus start paying off this initial up-front investment, while securing extra income in the future.

The only reason I can think of why this is not yet logical is that electricity is still relatively cheap, here in Spokane it is around 5.4 cents a KW, for inland power. It might be a little more for Avista. But again, instead of buying one bike with an LCD screen, simply buy one with an alternator instead. Just having one will give a gym owner a sense of what is possible, as well as make gym attendents more aware of the energy they generate.

Of course using a real bike or walking to get to work may be the best bang for the buck, as well as the best way to reduce one's resource footprint, but not everyone can do that, gyms will be around for a while. The idea is to improve on it.

360 + miles per gallon!

Here is an update on the bike hybrid.

My commute is 7.5 miles each way (if all shortcuts are taken) or 15 miles round trip. Installed the bike engine for a friend in 2007, she didn't use it. I was interested but figured I'd give it a little more time before deciding what to do, I initially wanted to be able to do the full commute 3-4 times a week by bike, but ended up most of the time using the poor man's hybrid, taking the car down the 480 feet hill that we live on, parking, then doing the rest of the commute by bike.

This shaved 8 miles of the commute each day which does make a difference over 4 days in the week. However, the problem is that dragging that heavy piece of metal up and down the hill only to get on a bike the rest of the way is still inefficient, not to mention that the car engine is least efficient when it is started from cold.


That hill we live on is a long hill and it would be nice if you had regenerative breaking on the car to capture some of the energy in braking. On a bicycle though, gravity takes care of just about 2 miles, going down at top speeds of 37 miles an hour, a very nice ride. Going up is a different story, and frankly the energy is not there for that 480 vertical feet every day. This is where the bike engine comes in, it adds relatively few pounds compared to an electric engine, and while making the bike heavier, has no drag when you remove the kevlar belt. The engine made all the difference, now being able to go the whole commute instead of partial commute by bicycle. The last month and a half have proven to me that this works, the bike has gone over 200 miles in less than two months, so that means it will pay for itself in probably about 6-10 months, when figuring in car maintenance and gas prices.

One added side benefit is that both ways one gets a good workout. Towards work there are a few smaller hills, and coming back that last big hill is steep enough to where hard peddling is still required together with the engine, still working up a significant sweat. Having grown up in the Netherlands, where gymns are still kind of a novelty due to the amount of bicycling and walking to work. Commuting and working out can be combined and therefor leave more time for other things instead of driving to a gymn and working out on machines. Exercise machines that don't capture the energy you generate, seems bizarre but is probably more a symptom of the age of cheap and for granted energy.

Finally, being out of the insular bubble (house, car, work bubbles) that separates us from experiencing the texture of reality is a treat. Below taking a break on a dirt path, the October sun still radiating warmth.

Hybrid bicycle using a bike engine for longer commutes.
(that would otherwise have been made with a car)

This was a project for a friend of ours, who wants to commute to work by bike for health and lower carbon footprint reasons, but just can't do that big hill, so a bit of internet searching later we came up with the bike engine. We would have wanted to go electric, but the weight is an issue. This engine is only about 14 Lbs, so you can still jump curbes with it. Since this is a gasser, we wanted the quitest and least polluting one.



Not an easy install for this particular new Mt bike, the spokes were wrong, needed 36, bike store gave the wrong wheel. Next challenge, a quick release axle, those things look weenie and are weenie since the engine fork won't fit over that, so we replaced that with the axle that came with the kit. Next challenge, protruding things above the axle, so the fork that holds the engine wouldn't fit, sawed and filed those off.

Above: The engine drives the kevlar belt that is connected to the grey plastic drive ring that fits on all the spokes facing it's side. Note the handle or lever with the black ball that tensions the belt for when you turn on the engine. There is very little drag when you untension it for just bicycling.

Note the extra muffler piece below. This only adds about 12 dollars. The sound on idle is very low, you can speak normally standing next to it and still hear others comfortably. Full throttle it is a bit more noise, but not bothersome at all.

Quick list of reasons to get this for this particular application:

• 250 Miles/Gallon if you ran it continuously (bicycling is very easy with it, so that should stretch your mileage and lower your carbon footprint per purchased gallon by a lot more, plus you can easily kill and start the engine while biking, so on downhills and flats you can just keep the thing off and just use it for assist going up a steep hill)
• No need to replace costly batteries every other year
• Emission wise very efficient, will post more data when I get a chance
• relatively quiet, nothing like a lawn mower

Bike purists most likely won't approve of this, and they have some good arguments, however, the thing to keep in mind is reducing our addiction to fossil fuel, carbon/resource and harm footprint, the size of a bike engine footprint versus a big 2-3 thousand pound car should be enough reason to encourage this commute alternative. Secondly, there is still pedaling needed, to get started, going up hills, it is hybrid, no moped.

Here is a nice electric bike with regenerative braking, at a steep price of 5K
http://www.metaefficient.com/archives/electric-bikes/the_mantra_ms1_electric_bike.html#more