Is it feasible to generate useful amounts of electricity by having people manually generate it, e.g. by riding an exercise bike?

Question

I’m not familiar with the mechanics of electricity generation and such, so I’m curious if there are good reasons why this isn’t possible or useful.

Edit: thanks for the great responses! I gather that the main problems revolve around the fact that it will take more energy to outfit the machinery and feed the people than you’ll get in return.

In: 5

Answer 1

[No](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4O5voOCqAQ). It takes a world champion cyclist all of his strength pedaling for two minutes to get a decently toasted slice of toast. Putting people on bikes to generate power probably wouldn’t even pay back the energy needed to build the bike-generators, never-mind the expense in building them.