Cycletricity 2013

George King
Thursday 4 April 2013

Cycletricity 2013

We had initially planned for Cycletricity to fit in with the St Andrews Green Week in March but had to postpone the event due to snow! However, the sports clubs came back after the Easter break rejuvenated, ready to pedal and the snow had long gone.

After some testing of the  4 bikes and generating equipment by the Saints Sport Team, 15 sports clubs then battled it out to see who could generate the most power (in watt hours). They each had 20 minutes to cycle as hard as possible to turn the generator and create electricity. The electricity they created was then used to charge the University’s electric vehicle, the Wee Green Machine (seen in the back left of the photo below)! The idea of the whole event was to raise awareness of clean, renewable energy and the projects and opportunities for this in St Andrews. Church Square provided the perfect location for this and we had lots of interest from passers-by who were not deterred by the roar of the bikes.

As the day progressed various tactics emerged, some clubs brought enough people to switch cyclists every 2 minutes (or so it seemed) whereas others opted for the ‘slow and steady wins the race’ approach with just one person on each bike for the whole 20 minutes. Overall winners were Men’s Rugby who were extremely competitive and showed up with about 20 people, beating Triathlon into 2nd place by a huge margin! Everyone who took part did a fantastically well but there are a few special mentions… First to Volleyball who generously allowed a small boy watching to have a go on one of their bikes thus forfeiting some power but getting top ‘community engagement’ points. Also to Boat club who only had 2 people for the entire 20 minutes but still managed to finish in the top half, huge commitment in their lycra rowing gear too! Finally, Cycling had 1 person for each bike for the duration but demonstrated their thigh power by finishing high on the leader board, just after the big teams.

Results Table

Position Club Total watt hours generated No. of people
1 Men’s Rugby 95.2 20
2 Triathlon 63.1 8
3 Men’s Football 61 12
4 Cycling 53.1 4
5 Canoe 43.2 6
6 Boat 34.3 2
7 Swimming 27.5 5
8 Athletics and XC 22.5 4
9 Hockey 16.8 9
10 Women’s Shinty 16.2 8
11 Tennis 11.7 3
12 Women’s Lacrosse 10.4 6
13 Lifesaving 9.9 4
14 Women’s Football 8.5 4
15 Volleyball 6.1 4

Check out http://www.facebook.com/EnvironmentStA for more photos.

Huge thanks to all the clubs who took part, we hope you enjoyed it!

Also thanks go to the University Physics Dept. for building the generating equipment and bike stands, to Transition University of St Andrews for their support and to Emily Griffiths, AU President, without them this event would not have happened.

Looking forward to next year!

Sarah Duley, Environment Team, Estates ([email protected])

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Cycling Club

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