We all know how important regular exercise is to maintain a healthy lifestyle, but with the demands of life, it can be hard to fit it in. Students at MIT want to help you fit that exercise in AND work (or blog, chat, catch up on news, etc.) at the same time, so they came up with an exercise bicycle that can power a notebook computer as you pedal. It’ll get you exercising, working, and saving energy, all at the same time! As the instructions on the bike note: “If you have trouble squeezing in that daily exercise, you can now multitask with no problem — bike while you work!”
According to MIT, someone using this bike should be able to produce 75 watts continuously. Most laptops require a continuous 30 watts to be fully powered, so it should be fairly easy for anybody to work and exercise, all at the same time. One of the team members that designed the bike was able to “easily” generate 50 watts which was more than enough to power the computer.
I’m sure at this point you’re curious how it all works, so here’s the explanation:
After many hours in the lab, the students coupled a laptop donated by Dell to a much-altered exercise bike. In their design, the motion of the wheel is conveyed through a flywheel, belt and gears to a generator in the back, which charges a conventional 12-volt battery like that in a car. A charge controller regulates the electricity coming to the battery to prevent overcharging. With the aid of a 12-volt cigarette-lighter adaptor, the battery supplies electricity to the laptop, which rests on a tray atop a swiveling arm in place of the handlebars.
Anybody interested in burning your own calories to power the computer that you probably already spend too much time on? 
Another interesting take on this would simply be to create an exercise bike with a tray for your laptop. Sure it’s great to save some energy, but a typical exercise bike with a mount for a laptop would be easier to produce and would cost less meaning it would be available to more consumers.
Source: MIT News [via TreeHugger]
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I’m not sure about a laptop or an excercise bike because I own neither, but it would be good if I could stick something on my bike to charge a battery which would allow me to charge my MP3 player, phone or headphones when I’m out and about. I’ve seen backpacks with solar pannels for this purpose but I’m uncertain how well that would work over here.
Typing while biking. That sounds like an interesting challenge, hehe.
I’m actually surprised that there isn’t some sort of add-on for the iPod that will do that. It almost seems like a natural way to charge an MP3 player, but I guess the batteries last long enough that it makes this unnecessary.
I can’t imagine just trying to focus your eyes on the screen.
Very true! Maybe you’d burn a few extra calories in the process of typing while biking?
I wonder how many calories/W you need to burn to keep it running and to how much food/hour that leads
That’s a good point, you would probably eat your savings.