The Bike in Rotterdam

The Bike in Rotterdam.

During the war in Rotterdam, there was no electricity. My dad, who already then, was very much into electric things, moved the dynamo (generator) from the front wheel of his bicycle to the rear wheel. He put the bike on a stand and in the evenings and in the dark, would peddle like possessed to provide my mother with some light in the kitchen to cook by on her little pump-up kerosene single flame cook top. Not every evening, some evenings there was no food. Brothers and I would go to bed early.

I read recently that there are hotels in Scandinavia (where else) whereby guests can reduce their accommodation cost by doing the same, peddle to produce power. The hotel of course has a converter which measures each bike’s produced energy being fed back into the national grid, which then converts into money and deducted from the bill. Nice idea hey? Now, as we all know we have a problem with weight as well as being the largest per capita of CO2 producers. Let’s put our thinking caps on. Hmmm…., what could be done to give relief to CO2 emissions and weight?

Eureka!

We subsidize all homes with a converter and a power point able to feed back our own produced electricity. We further get provided with bikes and stands with a lead to go into the converter. At every opportunity we jump on the bike(s) and lower our energy bill and hence the CO2. I am sure that if people that can afford to stay in hotels can do it, so can many of us. Just imagine the unemployed being able to earn a bit more to supplement their unemployment income. (Please don’t call it ‘dole’, it is a demeaning term.) The elderly who are sometimes inclined to getting a bit hazy in mind can defer Alzheimer by also jumping on the bike and get fitter than ever. Younger couples with increased fitness will, and getting all tingly in between those peddling thighs, hurriedly, disappear into the bedroom and by some kind of mechanism will convert their conjugal movements into even more electricity.

I am sure that the bike generated electricity will make more and more sense as the price of energy will inexorably increase to much more than at present. People that complain about the cost of electricity can do something about it and the more they peddle the lower the power bill.

Just imagine if politicians took up the cause. What could be more edifying than seeing Abbott on the bike stand inside Parliament House peddling like he so often does but… generating energy for Australia? I can’t think of no better way of dealing with all Liberal politicians including Slipper and Thomson. On their bikes, the bloody lot of them, eight hours a day.

Australia would be featured as a leader in saving the world’s ecology. Soon other countries will do the same.  Merkel would be powering ahead of Sarkozy .Whole armies, instead of fighting at useless wars and on killing fields would be put to work on bikes. Wars would be forgotten and Anzac Day would just fade away and being replaced by jubilant celebrations of peace and a clean world. Monuments of soldiers would be replaced by giant bikes and lithely shaped thighs.   just imagine, instead of wasting time texting and fiddling with Iphone and staring at little screens, the time was spent generating electricity and lose weight at the same time? What about converting all poker machines into power generating bicycles?

It would be so moral.

The mind boggles what many will come up with.

Tags: Rotterdam.Merkel, Sarkozy, Scandinavia