Use Your Bike as a Backup to Your Backup Power Supply

Re:Use Your Bike as a Backup to Your Backup Power Supply by cbanek on Sunday October 25, 2020 @02:41PM (#24888726)

I wonder how much more efficient the generation could be? 60Watts is still somewhat impressive in the rig mentioned, but I wonder if maybe better control of the rpms of the generator (through gearing) could give more efficient generation. I feel like at the gym, the workout bikes (which I think are generally powered by pedaling), will give you a wattage output that seemed higher than than 60 watts, but again, that's about resistance (and not taking into account the inefficiencies of power generation). Seems like it could be made usable for a daily power generation machine (reminds me of "Oxygen Not Included", where you have the person run on a hamster wheel to generate power).

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Re:Use Your Bike as a Backup to Your Backup Power Supply by YawningAngel on Sunday October 25, 2020 @02:50PM (#24888799)

Pro cyclists can sustain 300W for an hour or more, and even trained amateurs can break 200W pretty happily, so 60W sounds like a lot is being left on the table, yes.

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Re:Use Your Bike as a Backup to Your Backup Power Supply by hilb3r7 on Sunday October 25, 2020 @04:16PM (#24889529)

The hour record is held by Bradley Wiggins, and it's estimated he averaged 440 watts.

For comparison, I'm reasonably trained, and could maybe hold that for 4 minutes. I'm also considerably heavier!

I would guess that a random average adult male who doesn't neglect general fitness, but doesn't necessarily cycle, could put out 160w-220w for an hour if they were forced to.

60W is insanely easy tho, pretty much anyone without some sort of extreme physical limitation would be able to do that.

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Re:Use Your Bike as a Backup to Your Backup Power Supply by Eric_WVGG on Sunday October 25, 2020 @05:15PM (#24889939)

for some real fun, watch this video of an Olympic cyclist generating 700 watts to toast a single slice of bread

be sure to note the size of his thighs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoQnTypHbYk

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Re:Use Your Bike as a Backup to Your Backup Power Supply by aghillo on Sunday October 25, 2020 @03:14PM (#24889034)

Indeed. Thomas De Gentd averaged 298w for 6hr on stage 17 of the Giro d’italia a few days ago according to his strava feed (measured off his SRM powermeter).

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Re:Use Your Bike as a Backup to Your Backup Power Supply by angrysaki on Sunday October 25, 2020 @03:27PM (#24889137)

Or a bigger guy (Ganna), https://www.strava.com/activities/4229195275

333w for 6.5h, 460w for the first climb (35 minutes).

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Re:Use Your Bike as a Backup to Your Backup Power Supply by weareallcowards on Sunday October 25, 2020 @02:51PM (#24888815)

I wonder if you could design an MPPT system for a stationary bike, to adjust gearing based on the load with a CVT or something.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_power_point_tracking

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuously_variable_transmis...

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Re:Use Your Bike as a Backup to Your Backup Power Supply by 205guy on Sunday October 25, 2020 @03:00PM (#24888900)

Great idea! We could also add some AI and then connect it to the power grid, and people could earn something while watching virtual worlds on their screens and providing baseload generation to power all the machines.

What could go wrong?

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Re:Use Your Bike as a Backup to Your Backup Power Supply by rzzzt on Sunday October 25, 2020 @02:55PM (#24888855)

Magnetic resistance bikes should be good for this cause, just make use of the induced current and don't turn it into heat (which I presume is what they do).

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