From today's Electronic Telegraph:

Pedal power TV to uproot couch potato By David Sapsted in New York

A TELEVISION set that will only work if children pedal an exercise bicycle to provide the electricity has been developed by obesity researchers at a New York hospital.

Experiments involving overweight children aged between eight and 12 showed that those obliged to pedal when they wanted to watch their favourite programmes not only watched far less television, but also recorded significant loss of body fat.

The "couch potato TV" was developed by researchers at St Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital amid growing concerns over obesity among an increasing number of American children. David Allison, who headed the research said: "I am not naive enough to think we're going to solve the world's obesity problems with TVs hooked to bicycles. But there are other things we could do that are only limited by our imaginations."

Mr Allison, who once proposed that people should be charged to travel in lifts in an effort to encourage them to use the stairs, pointed out that 13 per cent of American children were considered seriously overweight, and that the number was growing. In tests, children who had the pedal-to-view sets watched an average of one hour of television a week while a control group notched up more than 20 hours per child.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 20, 1999

Answers

Must be modeled after Castro's exercise bike in Cuba. Standard joke by the Cuban population at the recurrent blackouts and brownouts they suffer daily. When the power blinks the people chant "Pedal, Fidel! Pedal!

-- (snowleopard6@webtv.net), April 20, 1999.

Hi Old Git, I read an article about a fellow who had the heating and cooling system hooked up to the exercise bikes at his fitness center to help out on the utilities. Not a bad idea. Two benefits for the price of one.

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), April 20, 1999.

anyone know of good sites that show how to engineer pedal powered devices? i've got some old bicycles stored, but could use still more ideas (tech tips) on putting them to good use.

btw, some time ago i was able to lay my hands on a 12vdc bicycle generator. they're rare, usually they're 6 vdc. been hanging onto to it for just this situation.

-- Cowardly Lion (cl0001@hotmail.com), April 20, 1999.

Old Git; Hey could we discuss this pedal power again ? So you take a 15 speed bike and prop it up so it's off the ground and attach a belt type device to the rear wheel, which is attached to a car alternator and a 12 volt converter. Is this what we are talking about? Actually it could work depending which speed setting you put the bike at when you begin peddling.

So how would we figure out the speed of the bike to make the alt work to supply 12 volt to the convertor? I guess a 15 speed bike would be better than a 10 speed? AND if the drive wheel(bike) is attached to the small pulley (alt) it should work ....

Any others want to join in this test of knowledge ?

Furie... ps. my email is my email.

-- Furie (furieart@dnet.net), April 20, 1999.

I read up on this pedal power stuff last year in my initial search, as well as other things. FWIW, in my own situation -- which is likely different than others' -- this is what I concluded:

1. I cannot afford solar panels with the proper stuff so that is out. Cheap solar ovens I can make with plastic and a box are okay though. :-)

2. My idea for a windturbine was grand, but the money for that vs. the output, despite that we often have a breeze, is really not practical, and my neighborhood home really has too much wind blocked anyway.

3. The pedal power idea generally requires a bicycle, an inverter, a battery for energy storage, et al. I never did get the exact plans for it but it's on my list so THIS thread is interesting to me. It is not rocket science, I could probably make it myself, with only very basic plans and very CLEAR instructions regarding exactly what type of item to buy (e.g., "battery" is a darn generic word, I need to know what kind, what size, etc.).

I also looked at how much fuel I would have to store to do various things. I am going to have a lot of propane stored and some basic camp equipment. However in the cities most people can't have propane tank so that's not workable for most. Gasoline is tremendously flammable. (I know, so is propane, but in the big tanks it's pretty safe.) And other issues.

Pedal-power, whether for occasional lights, occasional appliances, or whatever, looked by far to be the best thing to me for the money, effort and expense.

If any of the folks on this board have made one, I sure hope you'll post the details. If any of you haven't but could and would like to, please do so immediately and post the details, LOL!

PJ in TX

-- PJ Gaenir (fire@firedocs.com), April 21, 1999.

i would definitely like to see this thread elaborated on more fully, would like to see some sites with pedal-powered engineering (esp specs). below is a site with some ideas for pedal-powered tools. i'm going to *try* a hot link, but in case it doesn't work here is the url: www.sifat.org/approp/Atpc/ATPC.html we'll try it:

SIFAT appropriate technology

-- Cowardly Lion (cl0001@hotmail.com), April 21, 1999.

wow!! it works!! thanx thanx thanx arnie rimmer, used your thread notes!

-- Cowardly Lion (cl0001@hotmail.com), April 21, 1999.