I've been watching the Long Way Up motorcycle travelogue series with Ewan McGregor and Charlie Borman on AppleTV+.
They're doing the trip from the tip of South America all the way to Los Angeles on a pair of prototype electric Harley Davidsons. The support crew is in a pair of prototype Rivian pickup trucks.
The Rivians have a "tow to recharge" mode that they've used several times already in the first half dozen episodes.
The show is great and I'm as fascinated by their dedication to do the trip on electric bikes (the first parts of the trip were in freezing and sub-freezing temps in areas with long distances between grid electricity availability) as I am by the scenery and their narration.
Anyway, sorry for the tangent, but the title reminded me of the series. I hope it escapes AppleTV+ so that non-Apple folks can watch it at some point.
I've actually considered this many times, but the math never works out. I ride 50KM 3 times a week, Strava's "estimated power rating" is all over the place, given i ride the same trail every time i would think it should not be like this.
Lets be reasonable and say 160W (somewhere between all the ratings strava gave) avg for my 2 hour trip.
I think I am a pretty strong rider, at the peak of the season I can beat electric bikes on flat ground as my top speed is higher then theirs (I dont have a speed limiter, they do)
I can tell you this is NOT easy and once you realize how much physical effort it is you appreciate being able to plug things into the wall.
it is the sustained power output that will kill you.. You can probably dump 10w of power for a long time, but putting out serious power for extended periods of time isnt easy.
The math never works out, by a long stretch. Electricity is just too cheap and humans too weak.
“One kWh” sounds like a tiny amount, but it is 3,600,000 joules. If you want to store that as potential energy, you must (taking g=10m/s²) lift a mass of 360,000 kilograms by a meter.
Another way to see how large a kWh is: a human body, ballpark, needs 3kWh per day (125W an hour)
⇒ If you want to produce 3kWh a day, you’d have to eat twice what you normally eat.
And that, even ignoring heating and airconditioning, doesn’t power an average household in the western world.
I actually built a bicycle generator (an AC motor with a belt around the rear wheel) and would sell organic smoothies at music festivals. The fun part was the buyer had to pedal the bike to generate the electricty to power the blender to make the smoothie.
Even with only a 150w blender, fit adults had to work HARD to get the smoothie.. well.. smooth.
Kids basically couldn't do it, or not well enough.
There was a video of an Olympic cyclist powering a toaster with a bike. He wan't able to keep it up enough to toast one piece properly.
I was super in to cycling a while ago and I was only able to average 200w over an hour but thats not quite accurate because I was going super hard and then taking rests every 20mins which stops the clock.
As someone that bikes with a power meter, looking at my power curve for some rides: I've held 300W avg for 20 minutes, 200W avg for 3 hours and 160W avg for 9 hours. These are from races, a steady state effort could probably be a bit higher.
I think that may be some usable numbers for what an avid amateur cyclist can achieve (ftp ~4Ws/kg). And then one will have to take into account that the body efficiency of cycling is about 25%, so one will have to eat 4x that amount in calories...
Indeed. To put some numbers to this, here's an account of a 90 km ride I did several years ago:
I was roped into a team entry for a Half Ironman. Despite being more of a runner, I did the 90 km bike leg which was effectively a solo "time trial" (no drafting allowed) on a standard road bike with clip on aerobars. After averaging 35.0 km/h on the mostly flat (~600m elevation gain) course, I was exhausted. The SRM Powermeter I borrowed for the race said I had averaged a "measly" 215 W!
I haven't done the maths but I have a feeling the jellys you need to eat to sustain that power output marginally cost more than the electricity you would consume otherwise.
When rowing I can throw down a significantly larger amount of power than when I'm cycling (almost a kilowatt in a short sprint), but ultimately my average sustainable power in both sports is about between 150w-250w. This article got me thinking about calculating the amount of LED bulbs someone could power given a certain V02 Max... hmm.
Very interesting to know roughly how much energy one can create doing this! Being part of the current trend of people riding at home on Wahoo Kickrs/Zwift and other turbo trainers, I do feel like that energy could be put to use somehow! Even if it were just to power a fan to cool myself down whilst riding, it would be nice to think the energy was being put to good use!
I think once you do the math, and realize how incredibly little power a human can generate compared to modern electricity, you realize it's not really worth it. Literally forgetting to turn the light off in your bathroom twice a month would probably waste more power than a super-committed, hour-every-day stationary-bike-using person would generate.
I don't mind these kinds of "solutions", but I do object when they go in the "make me feel guiltless about everything else I do because I hooked my bike up to a generator" bucket.
> What I really don’t relish, though, is losing Internet access
In my experience with Comcast Business Internet, their upstream equipment goes offline a few minutes after a power outage. So regardless of how you're powering your own equipment, it's hopeless.
The cell network appears to persist through power outages, but bandwidth, packet loss, and jitter aren't ideal in the best of circumstances. When it's the only Internet access for the whole neighborhood, you should probably just give up on your videochat meetings...
A little while ago we had a state wide power outage and after a few hours even the cell towers were gone (there may have been some reserve for emergency calls on other networks). I can't remember if it was this incident or another one short after that left me without power for 3 days in a first world country that wasn't hit with a large natural disaster. After this the local government quickly made changes so these days it isn't so bad. One of the improvements is a massive battery backup system owned by Tesla which is able to smooth power supply when there are unexpected spikes in demand or a power station goes offline.
Its kind of weird sitting in the dark with absolutely no communication ability.
That's really interesting. It seems like in my area their system stays up and running but that's probably because lots of people have their home phone service running through Comcast.
Rowing machines are in my experience much more efficient. 200W is maintainable for an hour or more with some experience. (2 minute split, for any rowers out there). 60W (3:00/500m) is genuinely difficult to pull - any effort at all will exceed that.
Moderately well trained (based on 8-10hr/wk cycling specific training year round) older (40+) cyclist here... 260w average for an hour is pretty reasonable... 300w for an hour for hard a effort is possible for me when measured at the crank with a power meter.
One thing to keep in mind about power numbers vs pro cyclists is that they can churn out these kinds of watts at significantly lower body weights than a recreational cyclist. For output into electricity though it doesn't matter if I’m 35lbs heavier than a pro because watts are watts.
Regardless it seems to me that these levels of output using a full body motion of a rowing machine would be exceedingly difficult for a one hour period compared to cycling that leaves most of your muscle groups relaxed.
The reported 1 hour power seem to be on a low side. Average untrained male should not have much troubles generating 100W. Reasonably fit male that cycles regularly should be able to put about 200W. For longer intervals the power will of course decrease.
Still of course the power is low comparatively to traditional sources.
Is there a good way to put a generator on the bike itself? To say charge a powerbank/phone? I have a crappy bike (no gears, tons of rust) and I have a bad habit of going as fast as it lets me good. However I honestly don't really want to go faster than 15mph or so b/c it's generally unsafe. The problem is I have some mental block of making myself go slower. I guess I enjoy the workout. So I want to put in a resistance in somehow that I can crank up to make myself go slower. Does anyone have an ideas?
The generators I've found online seem kinda whimpy and just slide on the exterior of the tire/rim. Is there is something more hardcore I can put on the chain or something?
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).
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.
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).
> Actually, generating power with their muscles provides a valuable lesson for kids, whether or not the power goes out.
The article ends on this point about parenting philosophy, but I think the author does not set up or discuss it enough.
What I don’t exactly understand is the underlying suggestion to manufacture this project as a “hard lesson” for the children.
I believe it is widely understood that children learn very much by emulating their parents. So what the parent regards as important, their children will see, and internalize those behaviors.
When I see parents worry about children taking something for granted, it can look like parents feel regret about parts of them that they see mirrored in their children.
How cloudy does it have to be for a 3rd <$100 solar panel to provide less than 0.06 kWh of charge over 1 day? Clear skies are of course always better but I don't think I've ever heard just how bad it is when they aren't.
Depending on your latitude, in the winter on a cloudy day a small DIY system might be near useless. The panels might have a voltage when short circuited, but getting enough power through the DC-to-DC converter with enough leftover to overcome the internal resistance in the battery would be a tough. At best, it might trickle charge the battery and keep it from losing charge from self-discharge.
The advantage to the bike is that it not only covers the days where the solar is falling a little short (and where an extra panel would also work), but also on the days where the solar is failing to produce anything of significance (at which point you would either need a ton of extra panels, but even then you still might not be covered).
From my experiments making my own, got around 100W of power.
For reference, a laptop is around 30watts, charging a cell phone around 5w, electric shavers, fans for air circulation, small monitors are also game, so there are things you can power.
Storage can be achieved with a blocking diode and a supercap, or more conventional easily obtainable battery charging circuitry.
The article wanted to use these as supplementary power, and so during an emergency wouldn't be far fetched for bike-power to be useful.
That being said, for sustaining refridgerators (always on), or for using large power draw of washing machines, dryers, and microwaves, one would definitely need to rely on more than just biking (e.g. stored wind or solar as you pointed out).
But again, bike power can be useful as a backup or for emergencies.
I think the novelty here that justifies the article is that this article challenges the oversimplification of "unsustainable" into "useless".
This is an argument that bicycle generators can have value in some specific, non-critical instances, like when you already cycle daily and aren't very familiar with how to build and maintain a wind or water turbine (as you suggest).
The author claims to have 200 watts of solar panels but only 420 Wh of battery, and because it's lead-acid only half of that is really usable. Unless they live somewhere that only gets 1-2 hours of insolation per day [0] that is nowhere near enough to store an average day's generation. Likely most of the energy is likely being wasted.
When energy gets dug or pumped out of the ground so cheap, you forget how hard it is to generate 100W, and what you're calling on in resources every time you turn on lights or drive a car.
If you want a sustainable intermittent power source and you don't have a stream nearby, you can't do better than a solar panel. They're ridiculously cheap these days and, with a bit of battery backup, are a far more practical electricity source than human muscle power.
The game features "duplicants" in a futuristic scenario trying to survive in deep space.
The first technology to produce power is a sort-of hamster wheelie that one of them has to cycle on to generate power.
[+] [-] js2|5 years ago|reply
They're doing the trip from the tip of South America all the way to Los Angeles on a pair of prototype electric Harley Davidsons. The support crew is in a pair of prototype Rivian pickup trucks.
The Rivians have a "tow to recharge" mode that they've used several times already in the first half dozen episodes.
The show is great and I'm as fascinated by their dedication to do the trip on electric bikes (the first parts of the trip were in freezing and sub-freezing temps in areas with long distances between grid electricity availability) as I am by the scenery and their narration.
Anyway, sorry for the tangent, but the title reminded me of the series. I hope it escapes AppleTV+ so that non-Apple folks can watch it at some point.
[+] [-] kenned3|5 years ago|reply
Lets be reasonable and say 160W (somewhere between all the ratings strava gave) avg for my 2 hour trip.
I think I am a pretty strong rider, at the peak of the season I can beat electric bikes on flat ground as my top speed is higher then theirs (I dont have a speed limiter, they do)
I can tell you this is NOT easy and once you realize how much physical effort it is you appreciate being able to plug things into the wall.
it is the sustained power output that will kill you.. You can probably dump 10w of power for a long time, but putting out serious power for extended periods of time isnt easy.
[+] [-] Someone|5 years ago|reply
“One kWh” sounds like a tiny amount, but it is 3,600,000 joules. If you want to store that as potential energy, you must (taking g=10m/s²) lift a mass of 360,000 kilograms by a meter.
Another way to see how large a kWh is: a human body, ballpark, needs 3kWh per day (125W an hour)
⇒ If you want to produce 3kWh a day, you’d have to eat twice what you normally eat.
And that, even ignoring heating and airconditioning, doesn’t power an average household in the western world.
[+] [-] grecy|5 years ago|reply
I actually built a bicycle generator (an AC motor with a belt around the rear wheel) and would sell organic smoothies at music festivals. The fun part was the buyer had to pedal the bike to generate the electricty to power the blender to make the smoothie.
Even with only a 150w blender, fit adults had to work HARD to get the smoothie.. well.. smooth.
Kids basically couldn't do it, or not well enough.
And that was about 20-30 seconds of pedalling.
[+] [-] Polylactic_acid|5 years ago|reply
I was super in to cycling a while ago and I was only able to average 200w over an hour but thats not quite accurate because I was going super hard and then taking rests every 20mins which stops the clock.
[+] [-] matsemann|5 years ago|reply
I think that may be some usable numbers for what an avid amateur cyclist can achieve (ftp ~4Ws/kg). And then one will have to take into account that the body efficiency of cycling is about 25%, so one will have to eat 4x that amount in calories...
[+] [-] rct42|5 years ago|reply
I was roped into a team entry for a Half Ironman. Despite being more of a runner, I did the 90 km bike leg which was effectively a solo "time trial" (no drafting allowed) on a standard road bike with clip on aerobars. After averaging 35.0 km/h on the mostly flat (~600m elevation gain) course, I was exhausted. The SRM Powermeter I borrowed for the race said I had averaged a "measly" 215 W!
[+] [-] Rapzid|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kouzant|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevinhq|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exabrial|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] virtue3|5 years ago|reply
Check this out: olympic (cyclist) sprinter powering a toaster! it's intense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4O5voOCqAQ
[+] [-] deepvibrations|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hn_throwaway_99|5 years ago|reply
I don't mind these kinds of "solutions", but I do object when they go in the "make me feel guiltless about everything else I do because I hooked my bike up to a generator" bucket.
[+] [-] rzzzt|5 years ago|reply
(For mere mortals, it will be indeed closer to 100W.)
[+] [-] layoutIfNeeded|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scottlamb|5 years ago|reply
In my experience with Comcast Business Internet, their upstream equipment goes offline a few minutes after a power outage. So regardless of how you're powering your own equipment, it's hopeless.
The cell network appears to persist through power outages, but bandwidth, packet loss, and jitter aren't ideal in the best of circumstances. When it's the only Internet access for the whole neighborhood, you should probably just give up on your videochat meetings...
[+] [-] Polylactic_acid|5 years ago|reply
Its kind of weird sitting in the dark with absolutely no communication ability.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Australian_blackout
[+] [-] zrail|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] louwrentius|5 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, since late September, solar can't keep up. (Not a surprise given my suboptimal conditions.)
A bicycle as a generator would probably allow me to have a bit of exercise and easily provide enough power to get my blog through the day.
1: https://louwrentius.com/this-blog-is-now-running-on-solar-po... 2: https://louwrentius.com/solar/solar.png
[+] [-] Danieru|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adrianN|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jakear|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iramiller|5 years ago|reply
One thing to keep in mind about power numbers vs pro cyclists is that they can churn out these kinds of watts at significantly lower body weights than a recreational cyclist. For output into electricity though it doesn't matter if I’m 35lbs heavier than a pro because watts are watts.
Regardless it seems to me that these levels of output using a full body motion of a rowing machine would be exceedingly difficult for a one hour period compared to cycling that leaves most of your muscle groups relaxed.
[+] [-] miahi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] angrysaki|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FpUser|5 years ago|reply
Still of course the power is low comparatively to traditional sources.
[+] [-] geokon|5 years ago|reply
The generators I've found online seem kinda whimpy and just slide on the exterior of the tire/rim. Is there is something more hardcore I can put on the chain or something?
[+] [-] kroolik|5 years ago|reply
https://hollandbikeshop.com/en-gb/bicycle-wheels/front-hub/d...
[+] [-] toper-centage|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cbanek|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] YawningAngel|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] weareallcowards|5 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_power_point_tracking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuously_variable_transmis...
[+] [-] rzzzt|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gayprogrammer|5 years ago|reply
The article ends on this point about parenting philosophy, but I think the author does not set up or discuss it enough.
What I don’t exactly understand is the underlying suggestion to manufacture this project as a “hard lesson” for the children.
I believe it is widely understood that children learn very much by emulating their parents. So what the parent regards as important, their children will see, and internalize those behaviors.
When I see parents worry about children taking something for granted, it can look like parents feel regret about parts of them that they see mirrored in their children.
[+] [-] zamadatix|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qqqwerty|5 years ago|reply
The advantage to the bike is that it not only covers the days where the solar is falling a little short (and where an extra panel would also work), but also on the days where the solar is failing to produce anything of significance (at which point you would either need a ton of extra panels, but even then you still might not be covered).
[+] [-] clouddrover|5 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsmQaVSYx-c&t=555
The Nissan Leaf can be used to power your home. Useful if you want to keep your fridge running in an extended power outage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x78XGElU2I0
https://thedriven.io/2020/07/09/nissan-leaf-owners-should-be...
[+] [-] geocrasher|5 years ago|reply
I think more could be gained by a small wind turbine or even a small water turbine, although those are definitely more complicated.
[+] [-] fiziks_hckr|5 years ago|reply
For reference, a laptop is around 30watts, charging a cell phone around 5w, electric shavers, fans for air circulation, small monitors are also game, so there are things you can power.
Storage can be achieved with a blocking diode and a supercap, or more conventional easily obtainable battery charging circuitry.
The article wanted to use these as supplementary power, and so during an emergency wouldn't be far fetched for bike-power to be useful.
That being said, for sustaining refridgerators (always on), or for using large power draw of washing machines, dryers, and microwaves, one would definitely need to rely on more than just biking (e.g. stored wind or solar as you pointed out).
But again, bike power can be useful as a backup or for emergencies.
[+] [-] TameAntelope|5 years ago|reply
This is an argument that bicycle generators can have value in some specific, non-critical instances, like when you already cycle daily and aren't very familiar with how to build and maintain a wind or water turbine (as you suggest).
[+] [-] thescriptkiddie|5 years ago|reply
http://www.bigfrogmountain.com/SunHoursPerDay.html
[+] [-] supernova87a|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taneq|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rntksi|5 years ago|reply
The game features "duplicants" in a futuristic scenario trying to survive in deep space. The first technology to produce power is a sort-of hamster wheelie that one of them has to cycle on to generate power.
Very funny game.
[+] [-] chrisan|5 years ago|reply