We recently built two smoothie bike systems with large light-up advertising signs. These use our electrical pedal generators to charge some capacitors. This electrical energy is then used to power some standard electric smoothie machines. There is a large LED sign which lights up as you ‘fill’ the unit with energy and the, when the energy is used up, the lights switch off.
[Read more…]Cheltenham Science Festival – Spirax Sarco
Spirax Sarco produce energy efficient boilers and steam systems for industry. They run outreach activities for younger folk at the Cheltenham Science Festival, which is a large six day event. They have used our pedal power equipment for a couple of previous activities at this festival. This year they wanted to highlight the energy required to produce steam and link it to the various areas of industry that they work in.

Through discussion with their team, we developed some pedal powered light systems that changed colour from blue to red to indicate getting hot. Two additional displays showed steam ‘clouds’ which moved up to the top and each player raced their cloud to the top of their light display by pedalling. The event ran smoothly with several hundred participants over the six days.
Please drop us an email if you have a bespoke pedal power demonstration idea!
Review of 2019
While I have not been putting many posts on the website recently, I have been very busy with pedal powered projects! In 2019 I worked on 12 large pedal powered projects (not including the hire of pedal powered equipment for events). This included supplying 31 pedal generator units and 7 pedal powered Scalextric systems. I’ve been trying to standardise a lot of kit I supply, but every project is different! I thought I would review some of these projects.
[Read more…]Energy Efficiency at DHL Daventry
We helped the staff at DHL Daventry get a feel for the power and energy that different equipment uses. We set up two systems: One showed energy on our 2m high LED bar graph displays, the other directly powered different loads.
For Hire
We have a wide range of pedal power equipment available to hire for your event. This includes energy bikes, pedal powered cinemas, pedal powered Scalextric systems, sound-systems and bubble machines.
Please contact us to discuss further.
Pedal Power Systems
Want to get up and running with your pedal powered activity fast?
Here are some full-packages we can provide.
Tour De Yorkshire Pedal Power
We worked with promotions company Creative Race to provide pedal powered activities for MugShots, one of the sponsors of the Tour De Yorkshire cycle race.
Two Bike Energy Challenge
Here is our two-bike pedal power challenge. This comprises of two large LED bar graphs to show either power or energy.
The challenge can be either a timed challenge, where the winner is the person who generates the most energy or the maximum power, or it can be a race to generate a certain amount of energy.
This can be linked in to energy efficiency advice and gives the users an interactive way of feeling how much energy different devices use.
8-Bike Pedal Powered Scalextric
Every so often a project comes along that would have been the envy of my childhood self. This was one of those projects – I was asked to build a 8 lane pedal powered Scalextric. This meant putting together Scalextric track designs and testing Scalextric cars.
I was really pleased with the end result, which was built within a 10 day timescale. [Read more…]
Pedal Power at St. Anns Community Orchard
Bespoke Gear have been running pedal powered activites at St Anns Community Orchard in Nottingham for the past three years. They have child-friendly open days with loads of activities running. It was a sunny day during the school holidays so they were very busy.
For the younger folk we ran our pedal water fountain, which is simple, but always a winner.
We also ran our environmentally-themed water cannons. We had a queue for these for the whole day….
Its great to be involved with local community events such as this. Look forward to next year!