Can’t shake that nagging, guilty feeling that you should have dragged your butt up the stairs every time you take the elevator? Then you’re in luck, because Vycle creators Elena Larriba and Jon Garcia have come up with a pedal-powered elevator alternative that helps you get in shape as you travel between floors.
Like a bicycle, the Vycle has a gearing system that makes it relatively easy to carry your own weight between floors by just pedalling. If passengers are in a rush, or want to put more effort into their brief workout, they can choose different gears to change how quickly they ascend or descend. Although if you’re on your way to a meeting at work, you probably don’t want to work up a heavy sweat.
Ascending two or three stories on the Vycle doesn’t seem like it would be anywhere near as gruelling as taking the stairs, but we’d hate to have to rely on this if we worked on the 30th floor of a skyscraper. The cycle seems better suited for smaller offices, and even more ideal for homes where installing a full-blown elevator would be an expensive renovation. How many of us have an exercise bike in the corner of a room? You’d probably use it far more often if it meant you could skip the stairs.