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“Man on a bicycle can go three or four times faster than the pedestrian, but uses five times less energy in the process. He carries one gram of his weight over a kilometer of flat road at an expense of only 0.15 calories. … Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well.” – Ivan Illich, Energy and Equity

Bicycles are an efficient tool to accomplish a task, plus they are a lot of fun to ride. The technology embodied in the bike is culturally, ethically, socially and environmentally appropriate for almost any community.

Bicycles help riders connect to their surroundings in a way no other vehicle can. Cyclists must be totally aware of their surroundings at all times to ensure their safety. Bikes are slow enough for a rider to not only notice her/his neighbors but also to engage them directly. Not so in a car where drivers are cut off from communicating with one another and the natural environment almost completely. Car infrastructure requires vast amounts of space for roadways and parking spaces. Bikes are generally slender vehicles and only need a few square feet to park. Bicycles only require a small investment, and it isn’t difficult to build or maintain one or find spare parts, so they’re a technology accessible to nearly everyone.

More importantly, the bicycle is also self-limiting. People couldn’t have sprawling suburban communities if everyone used bicycles to get around. We would have to live close to where food and other manufactured goods are produced.

Bicycles have spawned myriad pedal-powered machines that are examples of appropriate technology. Maya Pedal, a Guatemalan nonprofit, builds bicycle machines from recycled and donated bikes for use in that country’s rural areas. The machines help people to de-pulp coffee beans, launder clothes, sharpen tools, process food, generate electricity and perform a host of other tasks.

The bicycle can also be turned into a power generator with one of several versions of a stationary bike attachment. One model is the Pedal-A-Watt, developed by William Gerosa in New York. It looks like a stationary trainer that locks the back wheel of any bicycle in place on a roller.

It takes far more electricity to satisfy industrialized countries’ power needs than bike generators could provide, but the technology nonetheless could signify an important step toward energy sustainability. An avid cyclist, Gerosa trains on his stationary bike generator for one hour when he arrives at his office each morning. The batteries he charges in that hour power everything in the office: a computer, printer, telephone, coffee maker and lights (super-efficient LEDs, another example of efficient and equitable technology) for five hours.

www.thehumanpoweredhome.com

www.econvergence.net

www.mayapedal.org