Super Bowls Goes Green

I was able to take part in a Green campaign for the Super Bowl. AMP energy drink is doing a live marketing event that will generate power for their portion of the pre-game show. Ironic considering I have never drank this style of energy drink in my life. Yup. I've never drank a redbull, rockstar, monster, amp, redline, whatever else is out there. Nope. Not once.

The concept is that Trek beach cruiser type bikes, quite comfy, are hooked up to trainers which in turn have been turned into generators. The power generated by the cyclists goes into batteries which when piled up over the next few days.

I am usually a bit skeptical of these things, like does our actions power the DJ set up and the mikes and the lights while we ride? They did. In fact when we all stopped, the entire tent powered down to darkness. Cool. So theoretically the event is power positive in its offset for the goal.

Also, all the bikes and generator/trainer units are being sent to Haiti after this event and given to families so they can power their electric items in their house. Haiti obviously having a notorious habit of being shellacked by Hurricanes on a regular basis.

Among the group I was in for two hours were; my friend/training partner Andy, (Ironman), a Cat-3 cyclist who had already done 6 hours that day and two obvious cyclists behind us. We kept trying to see who could get the most amps out of our systems. (They had little digital displays that showed the amps generated by the pedaling). All of us got to eight amps, some a bit higher. We were told that our group for the two hours had the highest combined battery upload of any group that day.

What was kind of cool is that there was this massive bank of batteries in the bank and each group had a Red Digital Readout (RDR) that showed totals amps being uploaded. The more juice going in the brighter the green glow of the neon they put around the battery's. So we could constantly see our output compared to everyone else. And we were doubling the other groups.

In reality it wasn't a contest to see who could do the most. There was no smack talk or recriminations. In fact I was sweating my ass off staying in Zone 2, while most were just lazily moving the pedals, reading a book, texting, etc. To stay in my zone I had to generate about 3.5 amps and was told in general most people were just doing 2.0 amps.

It's a first of a kind event put on by GMR marketing using live subjects at big public events. All the participants are being paid for their time at $20 per hour in two hour shifts. I took a total of four shifts.

I also won a hat when I answered one of their 'Green' questions correctly.