Or, even more wastefully, for spin classes or SoulCycle. That is kinetic energy just floating up into ether and steam and sweaty song. It's like pouring crude oil down the drain. The Internet agreed. Last week their Kickstarter campaign reached its $10,000 goal. Today it's over $30,000. This week they begin work on open-source plans; the stated goal of the crowd-funded project.

Andy Wekin (left) and Steve Blood (right)

I spoke with the co-founders of Pedal Power, Andy Wekin and Steve Blood last week. Wekin is the mechanical engineer, and Blood describes himself as "the computer programming guy" who handles most of the business side. I asked what they're going to do with all of that money.

"So, if you open source your design for the bikes," I said, "and everyone starts building their own, then you won't sell any?"

"Well, most people don't know how to weld," Blood said.

"It's an interesting business case. With a tiny little project like this, it's about getting out there. Andy and I both have inclinations toward the open-source world. Given that we're never going to be a business with a million-dollar marketing budget, we figured if we could open source the design and there were 50 or 100 people around the world who go and build it, they would all be ambassadors for us," Blood said. "So here's a way we can market this cheaply and with a lot of goodwill."

Last year a company called FitDesk kindly sent me a bicycle desk. I liked the concept and worked on it for a bit, but it was lightweight and wobbly. I could read on it for about 20 minutes before I started to get a headache.

Wekin and Blood thought of that.

"Our first prototype was considerably more wobbly than we expected." Now the machines are substantial.

Working at my bike desk also left me sweaty. Not immediately, and even though I wasn't pedaling hard, but surreptitiously sweaty. The kind of heat that comes on slowly, and then you have a meeting and everyone is asking if you're okay.

"Could one power a laptop in a coffee shop without sweating through their shirt?"

"Yep, not a problem."

Talking more to Wekin and Blood, it becomes clear that Pedal Power isn't really about selling a lot of bikes. It's also not even really about or exercise or workplace superiority. It's about our relationship with energy.

"I would love to see Pedal Power machines in every coffee shop in every city in the country," Blood said in their Kickstarter video, "So that people who are working on their laptops, working on their iPads, are at the same time generating their own power for those devices. I want to connect people to the energy they use. I want people to understand how precious energy is, and how hard it is to come by."

"If everyone in the United States could ride on one of these things and feel what it's like to turn on the TV, or flip on the light switch, or turn on a video game," Wekin told Fast Company, "I think it would change how we use energy. We self-flagellate sometimes about our carbon footprint, but we don't even realize what that means."

Chrissy Raudonis, also of Essex, uses Pedal Power to grind soy grains for her chickens every morning. "We have it in there on a coarse setting," she explained, "because chickens can't eat the whole grain." For her there's art in keeping the blow of incoming beans apace with her pedaling.