Green Microgym Harnesses the Power of the People

Entrepreneur Adam Boesel has developed an exercise bike that can charge batteries, and in August he will open his first Green Microgym in Portland, Oregon. He hopes to power his new gym with this technology along with solar power.

Boesel has a prototype for his idea, a stationary bicycle hooked up to a generator. If all goes well, the bikes will generate the power for his new venture, the Green Microgym.

The gym will have a couple of cardio rooms, a weight room, a yoga room and bathrooms, but no showers. Cutting down on energy use is an important part of Boesel’s formula, so don’t expect showers, a sauna or giant plasma TVs.

Solar power is part of the plan, and the whole thing will be hooked up to the city’s power grid, because exercise equipment doesn’t always generate much electricity.

That’s the big hurdle to creating a human-powered gym, Boesel says. People who look into it often become disillusioned,”because they’re thinking this is going to be a power plant.”

The reality is that someone pedaling Boesel’s prototype bike generates about a third of the electricity needed to power a single television. Aside from a gym in Hong Kong, his is the first commercial enterprise of its kind.

The technology isn’t complex. “If you look at a gym and you look at all the machines,” he says, “it’s just a bunch of spinning wheels. And so if you hook up a generator to a spinning wheel it’s going to create some electricity.”