Cyclepong 2.0 beautifully weds exercise with Pong

It's unofficially official: humans will never, ever stop figuring out new ways to play Pong. Further proof of said statement comes in the form of Cyclepong 2.0, an update to a marvelous project that combines the art of biking with the joy of playing Pong. Put simply, the inventor created an arcade-like installation with a pair of exercise bikes, an LCD screen and customized software that enables a pair of individuals to pedal forward and back in order to move their pixels. For those in England (Suffolk, to be precise), you can actually get in a game for yourself at Southwold Pier, but everyone else will have to be satisfied with the demonstrative video posted after the jump.

[Eric B. @ May 19th 2008 5:00PM]

What are they going to think of next? Virtual byciling?

[Boarderwoot @ May 19th 2008 5:02PM]

The fake golf grass is unimpressive, but if they configured it to power itself they might be on to something...but in the meantime ill be content with ringing the bell to warn the LCD that im comming but will never get there.

[Marcus @ May 19th 2008 5:03PM]

Genius!

[Low Ranked @ May 19th 2008 5:13PM]

The entire fun of pong was being able to use the original dial to move your paddle with one hand while holding your beer in the other.

What have they done?

[Matthew @ May 19th 2008 5:17PM]

they've now made it so you can play hands free and hold two beers

[Low Ranked @ May 19th 2008 5:29PM]

Touché.

[kodabar @ May 19th 2008 5:16PM]

That would be Southwold Pier (not southwoRld). And it's part of a much larger exhibition of equally esoteric machinery made by Tim Hunkin.
The man's a tinkering genius. And he's got a website:
http://www.underthepier.com/

[ddub @ May 19th 2008 5:16PM]

Looks like wii fit has some stiff competition.

[finnith @ May 19th 2008 6:36PM]

Have they made a Pong game where you move your paddle left or right based on which side you're putting your weighted on? If so, then I apologize.

[ddub @ May 19th 2008 6:48PM]

umm... i don't know, haven't found any device that I can put my weighted on

[david @ May 19th 2008 5:17PM]

What they should do is have your deflector move only as fast as you peddle. That way you'd keep your motion/heart rate up. Pedaling forward and backward seems dumb to me.

[George @ May 19th 2008 5:19PM]

The video is just as boring as I thought pong on a exercise bike would be. Thank you for not letting my expectations down.

[Munkcy @ May 19th 2008 5:21PM]

Now I'm all for anything that makes exercising more fun, but the video is of no help at all. Without the paragraph in the post describing it, all I would think is this is two guys sporadically peddling exercise bikes while a 3rd person watches. At least show it from behind the riders so we can see the bikes controlling the game on the screen.

[Stephen Johnson @ May 19th 2008 5:40PM]

Thank you ... I thought i was the only one who noticed how completely useless this video is..

[numbsock @ May 19th 2008 6:06PM]

just like reading a book...

you have to imagine what's goin on there :D

[TannukiSuit @ May 19th 2008 6:13PM]

I played something like this a while back during the London Games Festival '07. Had a bunch of arcade classics including Pacman and Frogger, all controlled by bicycle.

Unfortunately a pint of beer was around £5 that night, so I will forever have a negative view of the occasions. Even if the music was awesome.

[globalwidget @ May 19th 2008 6:23PM]

If you look at the video on the Cycle Pong version 1 page, you get a better idea of the rig in action.

[Nerdman @ May 19th 2008 10:03PM]

nice post... the video doesn't show that much though...?

[Jack Howson @ May 20th 2008 1:56PM]

Hey, I live near Southwold - in fact, went there today. What are the chances of that? In fact, I'm going tomorrow, aswell, so I'll take a look.

Tim Hunkin is an awesome guy, though.