Biking Downtown Could Help Power The Bus That Gives You A Ride Home

I don't know that I have any extra energy in my bike. I have enough trouble staying going on my own.

"the amount of kinetic energy generated in one second would be 500 joules"

I'm not sure that you got your physics right. A joule when applied to power is equal to one watt second, Thus 500 joules would be 500 w/s. If If applied over an hour, it would be 500 watt hours. or a half of a kilowatt hour -- pretty good. Maybe you meant that you would get 500 joules (total) over a journey of some distance.

I've heard from bike racers ( not me! ) that a good racer can generate something like an eighth of a horsepower. How much could be stored as energy while still managing some reasonable bike speed, I don't know. And yes, you would gain some by regenerative braking -- although that would probably add weight to the bike.

I've got a better idea, just put pedals at every seat in the bus and everyone will chip in. I'm having flashes of the flintstones here.
If those bikes really use "ultracapacitors" (not sure what the quotes are indicating) those things will be a prime target for theft. Yingyangs web site has no information on it either.

Sorry, this is a totally bad idea.

Bicycling is hard enough work already, and having some device slow my bike down while I'm working hard to get somewhere on time would be extremely annoying.

Now maybe the "ultracapacitor" technology could be useful for other things, like charging it up with the pedals while stopped at a traffic light, and then using it to assist with acceleration. But this would only work if it did not weigh too much.

It would make loads more sense the other way around. Have the freaking bus charge the bikes. This would actually boost rider-ship and make the bus more efficient by virtue of splitting the fuel amongst more bus riders. If it reduced traffic congestion it would make the bus more efficient by reducing stop-and-go conditions.

Gosh, this very idea got trashed on ecomodder.com just yesterday. So, let's assume that we are going to use the mass of both the bike and rider, and recover their kinetic energy from a stop, after coasting down to 10.9 MPH. That's equal to 1/2 second of free-fall, which goes 4'. With a combined weight of 200 lbs, we get 800 ft-lbs. Someone might do that every minute, giving an average return of .024 HP. That much might be considered "spare" from an average output of .1 HP, although the temptation would be to use that same generator as a motor, to help acceleration or hill climbing. After an hour, you'd have 18 watt-hours, or about 1/5 of a cent's worth.
Calculators make math so easy, I'm amazed that nobody seems to do it any more. The "pennies per charge" boast on electric bike ads is a big clue.

Bob Stuart

We can change anything.60 times in an hour
But we can never change
just one thing.

.... Really! i mean its a wonderful idea and it would work in Europe but in the states, how many people per capita bike? excluding California, Florida, and Colorado