Bicimaquinas: Bike Powered Machines

Follows a builder of bicimaquinas, recycled bicycles used as tools in Guatemala.
newtboysays...

Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!
I love this on so many levels. It's a beautiful melding of recycling, innovation, art, ecology, engineering, exercise, job training, self sufficiency, etc. This is how I want to see 3rd world countries to better themselves, in ways that better their lives without falling into the same traps 1st world countries have that destroy their priceless environments for convenience or profit. 1st world countries could learn something from that too.
*promote

siftbotsays...

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Friday, September 25th, 2015 6:05pm PDT - promote requested by newtboy.

Wasppsays...

Would like one for the times when my electricity goes out and the sump pump quits and the basement floods. Not sure of how to design one though.

iauisays...

Likely North American influence upon their culture. Many of the poorest in our countries are riddled with pop and fast food, so it makes sense it would be similar elsewhere.

mxxconsaid:

That country is so poor, yet so many overweight people.

Buttlesays...

A generation or two ago I doubt that poor Guatemalans could get fat, regardless of culture, because they simply didn't have access to the surplus energy required. This surplus energy shows up in nitrate fertilizers used for agriculture, powered tools of all sorts, and manufactured goods, like used bicycles.

It comes, of course, from fossil fuels.

A bicycle may seem a simple and primitive device, but just try to build a bicycle chain in your home workshop and you will see that making safety bicycles is possible only in a modern industrial state. It's not surprising that the development of the safety bicycle only barely preceded that of the automobile and the airplane.

The bicimaquina raw material is discarded bicycles from richer people -- nothing wrong with that, it's good, frugal engineering. But it should be borne in mind when plotting the future that hardly used bicycles are not a renewable resource, and require energy and infrastructure to produce.

Bicycling does give one a good appreciation of the value of energy. For example, 125 Watts is a respectable output for a touring cyclist; keep that up for 8 solid hours, and you have one kilowatt-hour. One kW-hr is a day at hard labor. A typical household in the developed world uses the equivalent of the labor of three or four hard-laboring slaves every day.

Of course, those slaves aren't the most efficient. You'll notice that the machines shown all use a direct mechanical drive. They could generate electricity, but that would cost -- multiply a few 90% efficiencies together and pretty soon you're getting nothing done by leg power.

Bicycle drive does allow good power production from human beings, and multi-geared bicycles are adaptable to people of differing strength. Not as much fun as flipping a switch, but easier than turning a crank.

It's plain that cheap fossil fuels won't last forever, indeed they may not last for much longer, and probably will never be available to much of the world at the same level as we currently enjoy in the US or Australia. Will we find ourselves scouring garages and cellars for disused bicycles?

iauisaid:

Likely North American influence upon their culture. Many of the poorest in our countries are riddled with pop and fast food, so it makes sense it would be similar elsewhere.

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