PLAYTHINGS : A Bicycle Built for Tree

Volunteers needed: Must be fit, enviro-crazy and Christmas-tree friendly.

Katherine Tiddens, owner of Santa Monica’s Terra Verde, which features such environmentally correct home-furnishing products as nontoxic paints and sheets made of unbleached cottons, has decided to let customers provide the power for the store’s Christmas tree. From Thanksgiving through Christmas, she’s calling for volunteers to hop aboard a old Schwinn and pedal for all they’re worth. The bike’s hooked up to a 12-volt generator, and the faster one pedals, the brighter shine the lights on the tree.

“It’s educational,” says Tiddens. “Kids are so used to switching switches and expecting light, air-conditioning, power . . . .When they come in here, they love to do it--and it shows how much of their own energy it takes to power the things we take for granted.”

John Schaeffer, whose Ukiah-based Real Goods Trading Co. specializes in alternative energy and energy-efficient products, sells about 200 of the $295 bike-stand generators each year. A lot of eco-minded parents buy them for their kids to power their TVs, Schaeffer says. “They tell their kids: ‘Sure! Watch the TV as much as you like. Only you supply the power.’ That makes the kids real selective about what they want to watch.”

Tiddens thinks the “power bike” is just the start of a revolution. “There’s all that energy out there going to waste,” she says. “People exercising, jogging, using walk-machines. Every exercise in every gym should be linked to little generators, so all that energy we put out doesn’t go to waste.”