The BBC ran a program late last year called the "Human Power Station", and the bike in the video above is one of the bikes used for that show. The ideas was to power (provide electricity) a house by using a group of muscular cyclists in a gym. The four members of the household were not aware that their house had been connected to a gym and they had to carry out their daily life as usual.
The number of cyclists being used at every point in in time obviously depended on the appliances in use. If I remember very well, there was a maximum of 100 cyclists. The appliances that posed the biggest challenge were the electric shower and kettle. These really got all the cyclists pedaling to their maximum, and even at that power went off after some time.
I tried this for myself last week to see how much I could generate. I have to confess that it was real hard work to produce something meaningful. The maximum power I could produce was about 120 W. So what can that give me?
Five to six low energy light bulbs at 18 W each
or
or
Two traditional light bulbs at 60 W each
or
or
Three Philips 42PFL6805 Econova Green LED TV at 40 W each
or
or
A laptop runs at about 75 W
or
or
A printer runs at about 100 W
Sounds like a good use of my muscular power ;)
