On a blustery spring day, over 100 people came to the University Building to see what their peak power is and show their interest in cycling. Each person was asked to cycle on the Wattbike to generate power in watts. They were challenged to see how bright they could make a light bulb shine and record how many Watts their cycling produced.

Passers by, Sports Club Captains, University staff and students, were dragged off the main concourse to have a go on the bikes. The participants had their results put onto the leader board in the University Building foyer, and all the results are put onto the Wattbike ranking website.

Any man who achieved over 1200W (same power as a kettle) and any woman who achieved over 650W (same as a microwave) were given a prize. Nobody was immune from it, not even the passing group of school children or the 2 Police officers who came in and certainly shone on and off the bikes in their high-visibility wear.

By the end of the day well over 100 people had shown their interest and generated Watts for the University. 5 universities around Britain are using the Wattbike in the project for Everyday Cycling, the non-competitive arm of British Cycling. Currently, Manchester has over 500 participants and registrations to the project.