The Pedal Power Utility Box makes team efforts possible! Up to 10 people at once can convert their good clean Pedal Power to usable AC power, for devices rated up to 1000W.
A Pedal Power Utility Box in use at an event. All the essential circuitry and wiring needed for Pedal Powered events is safely beneath a polycarbonate panel, so wires don’t get yanked. A four-line LED ‘Pedalometer’ displays current power levels to pedalers, so they can adjust their effort to keep power ‘in the green’.
Dealing with wiring, protection circuitry, and power display is often the most challenging part of planning and building a Pedal Powered Stage. Why not let the pros handle it? Rock the Bike has been building Pedal Power gear and wiring up bike music systems since 2003.
The Pedal Power Utility Box has an ultracapacitor that stabilizes the spiky DC power coming from bicycle generators and makes it useable and stable power for lighting, music, projectors, and other devices to run dependably for hours at your events. Plug in anything short of a hair dryer or electric kettle into its standard 110V or 220V AC outlets. The integrated Pure Sine wave inverter provides up to 1000W of continuous AC power. Higher total power levels are possible when you use our Modified JBL PRX loudspeakers, or use the DC output ports, as these bypass the AC inverter.
Continuous pedaling is needed to keep devices on. There is no battery, only an ultracapacitor lasting a few minutes.
Above: The Pedal Powered Utility Box can include an output for a 4′ tall Pedalometer, which is visible to more pedalers and to your audience. The Pedal Powered Utility Box shown above also features a Wattage Display, which is now available as an upgrade.
— 5 pedal power inputs for use with our pedal power generator, the Electric Fender Blender Pro. Expandable to 10 people by using a junction box
— 2 DC outputs for external devices such as our LED Stage Lighting Panels
— Over-voltage protection
— Ultracapacitor provides a 2 – 5 minute buffer of power (depending on consumption levels).
— 1000-watt Pure Sine Wave inverter with two outlets. Use a power strip to run more devices at once.
— Latched lid protects system during transport, retention strap, heavy duty handle
— Well labeled inputs and outputs
— Major components visible through clear polycarbonate panel, good for education purposes
— 4-Line LED output, or upgrade to a wattage display (+$600)
— Durable Neutrik twist-lock connectors — the gold standard in the event audio world. Yanked cables don’t disconnect.
See our Video Demonstration of the Pedal Power Utility Box
Okay, so you have a device or set of devices in mind (like a laptop and projector), and you want to know whether it’s possible to power them with people on bike generators. Here are the steps to figure it out: First, you need to measure the power consumption of the device you want to [...]
The technical needs of a Pedal Powered event vary greatly depending on audience size, venue, and power needs of musician’s devices. The questions in this post will help you to know what features are most important for you, and how much power you’ll really need. Please answer these questions and email us using the contact [...]
What follows is an explanation of the key elements of a Pedal Powered Stage. If you are ready to buy individual components, please see the Pedal Powered Stage products section of our online store. If you’d like a custom quote for a Pedal Powered Stage, please start by emailing us with the answers to our [...]
Bike Blending in action at Longfellow Elementary’s Spring Carnival Our Nonprofit Discount Program grants awards of 10% off your purchase and 15-20% off the rental of Rock the Bike gear to a limited number of nonprofit or educational applicants per quarter and has a simple application process. Requirements: – Proof of nonprofit status (501c3) – [...]
Sitting on the stool on the right side of this photo is an unassuming white form, but push the lever on it and you have a beast of a challenge — match the energy needs of an electric toaster by pedaling your hardest on an efficient bicycle generator. (more…)
After a recent Bicycle Music Festival volunteer meeting one of our best cargo bikes, a Mundo 500, was stolen. It was locked to itself. This electric cargo bike was heavy, immobilized and impossible to push. The thieves must have had to lift it into a truck. I realized it the next morning and felt dejected and ashamed.
I gathered some resolve to ask around for my bike. I remembered my friend Kipchoge’s story of recovering his stolen laptop by spending 3 days lurking in the underworld of San Francisco’s seediest Tenderloin and Mission neighborhoods. When he finally found himself face to face with the man who’d stolen it, in the hallway of a dingy hotel, the man admitted he hadn’t yet wiped the hard drive or sold it yet because he liked a video on the desktop. The video showed Kipchoge and his friends riding into the woods on Xtracycles carrying chainsaws, in order to do trail maintenance.
I printed out the photo below and headed out to talk to people in the nooks and crannies under highway overpasses and in the Plaza at Civic Center.
I also reached out to crewmembers and friends on facebook for help. I posted it everywhere, in all the group pages for which I was a member. RTB’s Nio connected me with Jenny Oh, who has built a bike theft recovery network that is remarkably effective at getting stolen bikes back to their owners. She reposted my photo and shared her tips for getting bikes back. Following the advice I filed an online Police Report.
I found that friends and even the people on the street were overwhelmingly sympathetic with my cause. Alas, they weren’t giving me any leads. (more…)
The 6th Annual San Francisco Bicycle Music Festival was our biggest ever and a milestone for our grassroots Human Powered Music Fest. Many thanks to the bands, fans, and our huge volunteer crew. Any one of the 3 phases of the day would have been epic enough. But we had a beautiful, idyllic daytime music festival in the park, an outrageous mobile party, and a post-modern urban block party all in one day. Daytime: 500+ people in a meadow, enjoying live music in the beautiful sunshine… Followed by a fire-truck dodging, freeway underpass screaming, Fossil Fooling LiveOnBike session, with captain Ariel using no electric assist to pull 3 performers and audio gear weighing 250 pounds on our Mobile Stage… Followed by a street party with an elevated stage, a glowing Bike Tree, and a 3-person pedal powered stage lighting system.
Rupa & The April Fishes perform at Golden Gate Park’s Log Cabin Meadow. Photo: Volker Neumann.
A Pedal Powered Stage is a system that must include ALL of the following:
The following elements are optional:
Creating a system yourself can be a great team-building experience but has a serious learning curve. Working with Rock The Bike will get you up and running much more quickly and with higher quality components. You’ll be able to put your focus on organizing events much sooner.
Let our experience work for you. We’ve been Pedal Powering music events since 2007. This will translate to less frustration and more empowering moments when you use our gear at your events.
We would be happy to assist you in customizing a quote for your Pedal Powered Stage. Please note that the items in this category are often made to order. Please help us help you by giving us enough time to do our best work.
If you aren’t sure if you want to purchase or rent, you can check out purchasing prices with the “BUY” button below, or you can contact us for rental quotes HERE, or email info@rockthebike.com
This article features our 2 Modified JBL PRX speakers, 3 Mundo 500‘s, a pedal power Utility Box and the Biker Bar. Shaun O’Dell published this article in the Register-Guard on May 6, 2010.
Look for a bunch of music lovers on Saturday who plan to pedal — not peddle — on behalf of live musical acts.
Thanks to $10,000 in tourism grants, the University of Oregon Bike Program has been able to purchase equipment for this year’s Bike Music Fest that will help support live music acts by pedal power. The Bike Music Fest, which is incorporated into the Willamette Valley Music Fest, happens Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The larger music festival will continue until midnight.
Fun, accurate, motivating, and visible from anywhere in the venue. The 3′ tall Pedalometer is an amazing help at Pedal Powered Stage events. This precisely calibrated system uses color-coded LED lights to display pedaling effort. Different colored sections correspond to dangerously low, dangerously high, and ‘sweet spot’ voltages. Your sound engineer and audience will know [...]
The sLEDgehammer is an interactive light challenge that harkens back to the classic carnival Sledgehammer game. But here, the aim is to convert your peak power output to a beautiful light display. The sLEDgehammer is accurate, motivating, and visible from anywhere in the venue. It’s a fun way to get your event participants thinking, cheering, [...]
A Rock The Bike exclusive! Our DC mod eliminates the need for AC power for your loudspeakers, making Pedal Powered Stages up to 44% more efficient. Above: Modified PRX 612 wedge monitors in use as the band ZH performs. Also shown in aerial configuration in Rock The Bike’s Pedal Powered Line Array (suspended from Bamboo [...]
Okay, so you have a device or set of devices in mind (like a laptop and projector), and you want to know whether it’s possible to power them with people on bike generators. Here are the steps to figure it out: First, you need to measure the power consumption of the device you want to [...]
