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"Bicycle is still looking good in comparison."
How is a bicycle looking good? Human muscle has an efficiency of 15% or so, unless you are a trained athlete with the right genetics, in which case you get a few percent more (this is not taking the 100W your body needs to repair itself, to run the heart and brain etc. into account!). A 150lbs man at the height of his physical potential can probably output 100-150W continuously for eight hours and five days a week without lasting physical harm. And that would be a very hard day at work, indeed! After a couple of years on that job you might as well wrestle Conan The Barbarian...
In comparison, a modern 1kW AC motor weighs probably some 20lbs, runs at 90% efficiency 24/7 until the ball bearings bust and does the work of 30 sweaty people (three shifts of 6 people, 5 days a week plus vacation and holidays). It can be powered off less than 100m^2 of solar cells (at 20W/m^2 of average capacity and including all electrical losses for battery or hydroelectric storage etc.). With solar electricity costing some 25cents/kWh for a current small industrial generation scenario, our little machine will run on $6 worth of electricity a day (and don't get me started about how much it will cost on wind energy...).
The equivalent 30 people will require 90 acres to support (US farm area is 900 million acres for 300 million people, i.e. we use 3 acres per capita. This includes the cost of raising children, feeding the elderly, launching space shuttles, etc. but is not representative for the caloric intake of hard physical workers! Since an acre is 4046m^2, the ratio of land use is by a factor of 3641:1 in favor of that electrical little machine. If you don't believe me, call me once you have found a way to support 30 laborers on $6 a day.
"How about fewer humans and more horses?"
Horses are probably similar to humans within a factor of a few. I don't really care to learn much about horse physiology until the turbo horse with 800MWh annual energy output/acre grassland has been genetically engineered. Why? Because 15% efficient solar cells produce 607kWe/acre peak for some 4hours per day on average, i.e. we get 2427kWh per day. That's 886,000kWh/acre annually. So the horse would have to come in at close to 800MWh of mechanical output. Such a horse would work at 80kW continuosly, which is roughly 100hp...
Wow... some horse that would be. It probably goes 150mph on the highway, too!
Outsource to prison labor in rural China....
Since I need the mechanical work here, I'd have to build an 8000 mile long curved crank shaft, first.
Dang it, Infinate, I'm about ready to pay the daily fee to get into a gym and spend some time on a stationary bike to see what kind of watts output I can do for an hour, and I'm not in shape! Not a very big person either, but I'm sure I can do 200W for an hour, while reading the TV Guide or watching a soap.
150W for 8 hours for the average guy should be a no-legger lol.
And a skilled bike rider won't be able to take on Conan the Barbarian, but they'll be able to out-bike him!
OK... I am a little, bald and fat man (;-)) who works out on a rowing machine, when he works out. Without any training I manage 80-90W for an hour on day one. With a couple of weeks of training I manage 120W and I bet I could get up to 150W IF I really wanted to (but I don't wanna... I am lazy :-)). The longest I ever tried was 2 hours (and close to 1200kCal) and I noticed that it gets easier the longer you go. But that's because my rowing technique sucks and I waste a lot of energy on the wrong movements. But even so I don't think I could last for much longer than three to four hours without very serious training (and certainly not without glucose intake - which I never tried).
I know much better built guys who work out daily for an hour or two and they can do 250W or so (you better be able to do that and 500W peak or so until you black out if you want to be on the rowing team). Top athletes like those riding in the Tour de France can do 400W for hours as far as I know.
100-150W for eight hours will be a lot. Don't forget that you have to eat some 600kCal/hour to make up for the glucose/glycogen you burn! So in an eight hour work day that's 4800kCal on top of your 2500kCal regular diet. Can your guts even absorb that much???
All numbers are rough estimates based on my Concept II indoor rower display. The machine measures true mechanical power output based on the physics of a flywheel and is so precise that it is generally accepted for indoor competitions.
OK I just did a 3k, and the wattage was 101. But, a rower is different from a bike, a bike is the most effecient means known for a human to move across the landscape, rowing has never been called that. Remember there's a drag factor on these machines, to simulate the drag (loss) of the water.
We both need to get on stationary bikes and see how we do, or better yet, I bet there are some cyclists out there, a lot of them, from tourers on up, plotting how they do, wattage-wise, for X amount of distance. Remember not all serious bikies are racers, some are tourerers or "randonneurs" but they still get into tracking things like wattage, some of them.
100W for a nice cardiovascular workout sounds about right. The trouble is not to do it for 3k but for 300k. I don't think my bottom could handle that. Ouch...
Rowers are very efficient because they can make use of legs, arms and upper body in every motion. The rower's body is typically well proportioned and, IMHO, a lot more attractive than the biker's (all legs, no arms...). The competition is not fair, though, because rowing is typically a sprint discipline while professional cycling is about going the distance and I am sure the muscle physiology is very different in athletes of both disciplines.
It is interesting to note that a rower can black himself out by removing so much oxygen from the blood that the brain sets out. From what I have heard about professional rowing, the goal is to nearly black out on the last pull. One pull too early and the boat will be a bloody mess because tangled oars at that speed are enormously dangerous. I had a few "accidents" with other beginners on the water at low speeds and black thumbs is the least that can happen. The worst thing is that everyone lands in the water, but I guess if that happens to a professional, he or she probably doesn't have to show up for a few training cycles...
I don't doubt that humans can do amazing things physiologically, but it is absolutely clear that machines are by far more capable. I, for one, wouldn't want to compete seriously against my notebook battery and a brushless RC flight motor weighing two ounces or three. I might even win, but only barely. And by weight... let's not even go there!
Infinate - you just enumerated why I decided to bust over $800 to get my own ConceptII.
There's one up at the local gym, and for $300 a year, I could use their rather germy Model C, or for a depreciation of about $200 a year, have a nice new Model D here to trip over sometimes, like I did this morning, and other than that, hop on and row. Much cheaper than living on the water which is what it would take for me to get out on a scull daily.
For a 5'4" 45-year old female who's a good 30 lbs over "fighting weight", not bad. When I was a a decade younger and much more fit, I seem to remember putting out more wattage on a rower, it was probably a model B or early model C, I hung with some rowers, mostly or all heavyweights, who were told to row for X minutes, doing at least Y watts. They were impressed, I thougth it was a workout, hehe.
Rowing is a much more balanced exercise. For weight loss, Concept II recommend doing a 5K a day but of course that's just a very general rule - l lot of serious erg'ers do more, and they mix it up, power 10's and 20's and intervals etc.
I decided this is cheaper than running, even, since running shoes cost a bit. I still will probably go out and do runs too. Just to mix it up.
But a rower, pushups, situps, maybe some burpees and boxing type stuff, and you've got a pretty thorough workout. I'm falling into using pushups etc to warm up for the rower.
Yes, on the real boat - all kinds of "neat" things can happen! You get tons of blisters at first, you don't have to feather the oars on a rowing machine! And your hands collide, at best it's some blood and lost skin to your own nails. Then there's catching a crab, or does the crab catch you? You can end up right in the water if you do it "right" lol. Tons more skill needed to go fast in the boat, you can get strong as a horse on the erg and if you go out and learn it on the water, it's all pussyfooting around, you'll never use those muscles you built up. And that's if you grew up knowing which end of an oar is which, I'm a "natural" but I'm here to tell you, (bush voice) it's hard.
Yeah I'd rather see the Peak Oil Man in that movie warming up with some burpees then using a Concept II to power his little TV, hehe.
It's a fun machine... not as fun as being on real water, but much easier, indeed. I hate gyms. I rather work out on one simple, high quality machine at home than to be on some high tech robot equipment among other sweaty people. Either that or just ride my bike for fun (not for sweat).
I find that for weightloss a slow, steady rythm is much better. Of course, it gets boring rather fast, but if I am at 70-80% of my limit, I can go for a long time without hurting and I am more interested in doing 400-600kCal regularly than 1200kCal once and then lose all interest for a long time.
It seems that the general idea with cardiovascular workout is to push the heart rate higher for fitness but lower for simple calorie burning. The additional effect is that if I go faster than I can produce glucose from glycogen, I develop an enormous hunger afterwards, which usually completely swamps the energy expense and is totally counterproductive to the effort. But if I go nice and slow, I don't get hungry much at all. I did a few experiments on myself and found this to be a pretty good rule: keep the heartrate at 120-130 and don't try to be a hero... sweating starts after ten, fifteen minutes and if I keep myself hydrated, it is a very effective exercize to compensate for being a couch potato the rest of the day. I monitor my heart rate and not the power or cal/h or time display! And if I am too fast, I slow down and that is easier on the hands, anyway.
So that's what I am using my rower for... the professionals would laugh at my whimpy efforts, but then, I don't have to prove anything to anyone. I want to feel good, compensate for loss of back muscles due to sitting all day and that's pretty much it. I can live with the fact that I will never win the olympics... because none of you except for one, will either. :-)
I agree, most rowers push themselves to the limit on the machine. It is easier because it does not require nearly as much technique as being in a real boat. The downside is that it is easy to forget all about technique and row like a pig. I wouldn't want to be in a real boat without a refresher class after all these years. I would probably just capsize or crush my thumbs... which I did often enough.
Actually, I thought about making electricity with the rowing machine once. But then I calculated that it would take me ten hours of hard work for 15 cents of return... just didn't seem worth the effort.
:-)
Well, Floyd Landis did 230W average across the entirety of his (possibly hormone-fortified) Tour de France performance (a few hours per day), so 150W for 8 hours is not easy at all. Look in my old oildrum article for more info.
Ha! Now that is a great article bringing it to the point! And it also mentions PH (peak helium). Thanks for pointing it out, because I hadn't seen it, yet. Love it, though. :-)
I'm in pretty good shape- ran a 3 and 1/2 hour marathon not too long ago. I can do 150W continuously on an exercise bike with minimal effort. I could get 200W steady for maybe an hour. That's enough to get me sweating and slightly winded, but I could still hold a conversation at that pace. I could do bursts for several minutes at 250W, but could not sustain this for long. I doubt that I create as much electricity as is used up by the 27" TV screen I watch at the gym while I use the bike.
I did once see a story about an engineer who was worried about his kids' health when they sat around watching tv. He hooked the TV up to the exercise bike and allowed his kids to watch as much tv as they pleased, only one of them had to be on the bike to keep the tv on. They developed a system of taking turns, and they took breaks at the commercials of course. Can't remember how big the screen was, but had to be smaller.
On a related note, older exercise bikes and other CV equipment used to always run on its users energy output. Newer ones plug in to an outlet. I have no idea why.
i have often wondered how much more efficient running is than walking . a really fit runner has a much more fluid motion than a plodder. one way to tell how efficient one is running is to listen, a real good runner moves along silently while a plodder is clop clop cloping along.
I am not in that category, i.e. the runner that moves along silently, but I've been in enough long distance races to see some of the second tier African runners. When I see them in person it feels like some sort of optical illusion. The speed of the runner is entirely out of proportion to the visible effort. As much as I love it, I have to tell you it is less effecient per distance travelled than walking. One definitely burns more calories per distance running.
Here's a nice table:
http://www.nutristrategy.com/activitylist3.htm
Yes, walking is more effecient. Racewalkers put in decent Marathon times, hehe.
Read up on how Armstrong's coach looked at how the winning African distance runners ran, as the book put it, they'd not so much run as "scoot", they weren't using long strides. This is why Lance and coach decided to go with higher RPMs, they decided human lengs, his at least, may work better moving faster with less power per stroke, it may deliver more power overall and they were right. Note that Boonen, a lower RPM masher, has not been able to win a single Tour.
They also looked at Lance's power to weight ratio which is a big factor. Get the power up, keep the weight down, and there you are. Lance was like a gasoline engine competing against stanley steamers.
Back when I was a biker, a serious biker in the late 80s, and yes I wish I'd gone into that sport for at least a bit, I was a pair of legs that looked like a Marvel Comics character's, with the basic biker skinny upper body. I seem to remember being able to cruise at 150W on a stationary bike, 200W pushing it, and get close to 250W in a sprint. Sprinting was my strong suit. But I was a pair of legs, a pair of lungs, ate all I felt like, bodyfat very low, did a lot of utility "traffic" riding which meant lots of sprints etc., so my power to weight ratio and training was decent.
In parts of the world where people are using their bodies to get work done, there are some amazing feats of strength done as routine work though, some of those messengers and pedicabbers etc are doing amazing things.
Note that Boonen, a lower RPM masher, has not been able to win a single Tour.
Eh. Boonen is a sprinter, he wouldn't attempt to win the Tour.
It would be better to compare Lance to Ullrich, who was his rival all those years.
On the subject of bicycling RPM, as far as I remember, research has shown that Lance's RPM expends more energy than a slower RPM would. This has puzzled researchers since the example of Lance should suggest it was opposite, it may be that Lance is a special case.
In general I would expect that the RPM that is least degrading to your muscles would win the Tour.
i suppose your table is correct. however i am surprised by it. i wonder if the cal/hr values for running and walking (on a relative basis) are accurate for an elite runner.
I guess we don't really need people, since motors are so much more efficient. Trouble is, you can't get motors to buy stuff-- they aren't much good for any economy based on consumption.
Which just brings up the point -- if energy efficiency were the goal of our economic system, there wouldn't be any peak oil crisis. But it's not, the point of our economy is converting BTU's to dollars -- quite a different matter. So we have a manufactured crisis, but contemporary politics doesn't permit a rational response..
I agree that we have a manufactured crisis. But that is actually a good thing because it means that we have at least a good chance to "unmanufacture" it.
Typically, when nature is the source of a crisis, there is nothing much one can do about it but to ride it out and count who's left at the end of it. Despite what you hear about these things, we wouldn't be able to deflect even a medium size asteroid with today's technology. A galactic Gamma Ray Burst pointing at us would fry us without any warning, heck, even something as small as a supervolcano will put the S and G in "Sodom and Gomorrah". Good thing is: these things are rare! Your chances of being hit by a terrorist attack of marrying after age 40 are still larger than the combined risk of super-catastrophies.
PO, on the other hand, is a problem we have seen coming for 50 years. The writing is on the wall! I am told they had to re-paint it three times because it was withering off already. I do not count that among "life-threatening events your parents did not tell you about".
I do not agree on economics being reduced to "turning BTUs into dollars". Most BTUs turn into useless heat. Even the ones that heat your home are mostly wasted. You are heating a 1000 square feet or more but typically don't feel the temperature of more than the few dozen right around you. All the other energy radiates into the universe without doing you much good. That radiation can be greatly reduced by putting insulation in. A bit of aluminum foil and glass/stone wool and the problem becomes half an order of magnitude smaller. But the cost of the insulation material and the labor to install it turns into GDP just as much as the price of the BTUs you are no longer wasting would. And BTUs that are not just heating the sky can as well run a machine for you which creates even more GDP...
It all depends how you look at it.