When I got there the party was out in the parking lot. There was a selection of unusual human powered machines, and people were going from one to another trying them out. By far the most practical of them was Mike's electric powered recumbent, famous because it can go 25 miles at 25 MPH for a charge that costs about 5 cents at the wall socket. The competition for most ridiculous was tough, but this was a contender. Notice that the back wheel doesn't spin around the center, but rather a point near the rim of the tire. You could get it going by pushing with your foot,  but after that you had to rock back and forth in rhythm with the rotating tire to keep it going. Getting the rhythm is a trick, and once you have that it's quite an aerobic experience. Fun though.

     

I tried to ride most of the machines. The plywood bike's big feature was that any sized rider could sit on it "comfortably". It's hard to see in this picture, but the girl in pink leggings is standing behind a machine that is powered by cranking the handles. When riding it your feet just sit on the pegs.

     

     

      

It really was quite a lot of fun to ride the machines!

      

Unlike most parties this one had two tracks, the hang out in the gym and party track, and the listen to presentations track. Aside from everything else I think a dozen different interesting causes were tabling. One table had a guy selling neat battery operated lighting products. Another was a guy pushing mochi, a sweet brown rice based cooking ingredient I'd not been aware of before. Another tabler was urging people to attend a bike swap at the Cow Palace Nov. 29th & 30th. Hanging out in the gym, there was a lot to do, but for some reason the speaker track drew me in. The room for it was a classroom that wasn't that full, and much more quiet than the zoo like gym.

The first speaker was a bicyclist who likes to ride in the alps. He had some stunningly beautiful pictures, but the room was dark and taking pictures didn't seem to be appropriate. My most vivid memory of it was a series of pictures of a winding road up a very steep mountain side. Mont Blanc was in the background of some of them. The speaker said "This is the best road to bicycle I have ever found on planet earth." I gather he had biked more of it than most people.

Tamara Dean was the next speaker. Her book, The Human Powered Home, got her a speaker slot at the Green Festival, and she had decided to add a detour to Palo Alto for this event at the last minute. She had just come out from Wisconsin, where she lives in the valley that is home base for Organic Valley, the organic food distributor.

Tamara had decided to power her home and everything in it herself, and the lessons learned from that were the starting point for her book. She explained that human powered devices that are designed and built to do (whatever the task is) make a lot of sense if the power requirements are within human ability. Generally that is about 100 Watts if the duration of the exertion is less than about ten minutes, or more like 25 Watts for longer periods. People can augment the power they deliver over time by getting in shape. Pumping water, shelling nuts, powering small radios and LED based lights, spinning potters wheels, push mowers, and many other kitchen and shop devices are practical and common. The talk was so eye opening that I got the book.

The next speaker was a local bike activist. Because his passion is sustainable technology, his presentation was all based in paper and things, none of which required electricity. He started by briefly reminding us of the history of the bicycle. Most of the key innovations that made the modern bicycle possible happened in the 1800s, the same time frame when the basic innovations Tamara was talking about were developed. The changes since then have been refinements compared to the early changes, when in just a century two wheeled human powered transportation went from "fad toy" to "practical transportation".

     

The way the guy talked made wooden bicycles a very exciting idea. Wood is a very easy material to work with, and you can make bikes of almost any configuration out of it. He had made bikes from driftwood, plywood, and other cheap materials. Usually he gets the moving parts from a cast off normal bike. There are plenty of those around.

     

His talk really did follow the outline he showed us.

  

When designing a new bike, the guy always starts with Cardboard Aided Design (CAD). He makes cardboard cutouts the right size to represent himself, the wheels he has to work with, and other fixed components. Then he arranges them, looking for answers to questions like "where does the chain go?" (for maximum efficiency the torque bearing chain should go in a straight line from the crank to the drive wheel), and "can I reach the handlebars comfortably?" (The steering rake should be such that the tire patch for the front wheel is an inch and a half or so behind a line drawn down the center of the shaft from the handlebars to the fork. Otherwise the steering feels weird.) He has learned from experience to build it only after he sees good answers to these. The guy liked making different bikes. There are already enough normal bikes, so why try to compete with those?

Meanwhile, in the gym there was a party going on. I missed most of it, but I'm sure the people there had a great time.