Opinion

Pedal power

By Tony Laszlo

At the top of my "Things I will never buy" list - right next to gourmet French cuisine for dogs - is the exercise bicycle. Being sweaty and bored for long periods of time is not what turns me off. It's the lack of forward motion. Something about being stuck in one place, pedaling away furiously, reminds me too much of, well, life.

That said, I am quite fond of bicycles in general, and am not fundamentally against the idea of a two-wheeler that doesn't move. But the only way you can get me on such a contraption is if there were some purpose to the, er, exercise. Aside from burning calories and firming up my buttocks, that is.

In short, I need something more in the way of incentive. I'd pedal religiously each morning, for example, if it would power my apartment for the month. I would even pedal in the evenings and on weekends, if I could sell the surplus energy to the electric company. Heck, I'd do it just for the pleasure of sending a bill to them each month.

During the 2002 FIFA World Cup I saw some people huddled near a train station in central Tokyo. They were standing around a bicycle attached to a electricity generator, which was in turn hooked up to a television set. These people - strangers to each other - had gathered in a little square to watch the football matches on the television, and of course, root for the Japanese team. They - the sober among them anyway - would each take turns pumping away on the bicycle so that the crowd could enjoy the games in real time. Now, there's a proper reason to pedal in place!

A similar setup is at the center of an ingenious development project in rural Laos. There, stationary bicycles and generators are connected to personal computers with a wireless connection to the Internet. Some of the townsfolk pedal while others send and receive email. Primitive? Maybe, but you could also say that these people have leap-frogged into the digital age, neatly overcoming the limitations of their power and communications infrastructure. As a side-benefit, they're all as fit as you please.

At the Japanese Diet, "clean energy" is an important buzzword these days. There is a lot of talk about switching over from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power. In some quarters, people are even proposing that we power ourselves with the hydrocarbons of other planets. But such transitions are very slow in coming, largely due to the costs involved. Why not focus more on the simpler solutions? Imagine how many homes, offices and factories could be powered just by hooking up generators to the exercise bikes, treadmills and other equipment at fitness clubs in Japan alone!

Shukan ST: Feb. 4, 2005

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