Haha, I wish – they call it the hour record for a reason!

I’ve got explosive short-term speed, but it doesn’t last, and I get dropped within 20 minutes, as my power output dips below the optimized pros who can do 400W constantly for entire Tour stages.

I appreciate the comment though!

It’s a really good business idea that I’ve had more than once – a self sustaining “green gym”.

Members would leave their electronic devices in special hardened lockers, plug them in, and then go to work out, and the power from central battery bank would then charge everything that’s in the lockers.

I also had an idea for credit system where the more power you generated the cheaper your monthly bill/subscription would be for the gym (only a few bucks here and there), or some kind of perks, like a free t-shirt once a year if you generated over 1 MWh (1000 kWh) or whatever.

The power generated by such a place would probably be negligible but it would give people the same emotional high as other pro-social tasks.

TLDR: It’s a great concept but it’s about 100× more exhausting than you imagine.

I absolutely love stuff like this, and I also love cycling.

However, there is a big caveat here: I’ve been cycling for years and know my own power output:

Output – Time Window – Heart Rate

• 1400 W* | 60 seconds | 208 bpm
• 385 W | 20 minutes | 162 bpm
• 148 W | 6 hours | 110 bpm

*(yes, I know. My thighs are larger than some people’s torsos and it scares me too)

That means that on average, around 13 and ½ hours of pedalling to charge this thing. (2 KWh is also worth $0.68¢ where I live at standard residential rates).

Humans are not great at converting their physical and thermal energy into kinetic or electrical (20-24% for most bodies).

Pedal power is amazing for things like charging phones or powering small devices and computers though, or for something completely meta: Charging up a eBike or electric scooter (120W), to then use without pedalling later.

Which then begs the question – if our “human/person power output” is like 150 watts constant … and the sun provides 1.4 kW/m² of energy – why not just lay down a 150W photovoltaic solar panel ($89) in the sun and sip on some unsweetened iced tea instead?