Reading the Numbers: Confidence Labels, Statuses and Red Flags

What the labels mean

Every factual claim on this site that carries a number also carries one of eight confidence labels. Documented means the number comes from an operator manual, a build log or a manufacturer datasheet, quoted rather than paraphrased. Measured means the result was instrumented — a peer-reviewed study or an independent test, not a claim. Manufacturer rating and operator-stated both mean a figure published by a party with a stake in it — a vendor's datasheet, or an operator's own account of its system; they stay two separate labels because a spec sheet is a rating and a field account is an account, and the two carry different kinds of uncertainty. Estimated means the number was derived here, with the method stated alongside it. Not disclosed means nobody has published a value; it is an answer in its own right, not a gap to be guessed at. Uncertain marks a fact where sources conflict or a claim could not be corroborated either way. Promotional marks a marketing claim and always appears with a correction alongside it.

Specifications

What do these labels mean?

Field	Value	Confidence	Sources
Taiwan "Starlight Cinema" energy-harvest target	25 kWhResearch correction:Treat as an unverified promotional target, not a demonstrated result.A 2015 Earth Hour event target; the harvested energy was never measured or disclosed.	Promotional / press-reported — not verified	¹
Karlsruhe school event, live buffer telemetry	about 30 % of the buffer battery consumedReported candidly by the operator, including the probable cause; this is what honest telemetry looks like.	Operator-stated	²
Kino Rowerowe rider-supplied share of event energy	up to 50 %A disclosure that the riders do not supply all the power — stated plainly rather than obscured. The report groups it with promoter-stated rather than measured specifications, so it is labelled operator-stated, not documented.	Operator-stated	³
Rock the Bike ultracapacitor bridge, published in writing	2–5 minutes, depending on consumption	Manufacturer rating	⁴
Promotional claim: "100 to 320 watts" per average rider	100–320 W claimedResearch correction:Contradicted by every operator and measured figure on this site; the defensible constant is 50–60 W electrical.See the human-power explainer for the full rebuttal.	Promotional / press-reported — not verified	⁵
Promotional claim: "100 to 250 watts" per average person	100–250 W claimedResearch correction:Contradicted by every operator and measured figure on this site; the defensible constant is 50–60 W electrical.	Promotional / press-reported — not verified	⁶
BikeCine average power claim, per cyclist	about 200 W claimedResearch correction:Roughly four times the documented 50–60 W constant; best read as a mechanical burst figure, if it has a measurement basis at all.Press coverage, not independently metered.	Promotional / press-reported — not verified	⁷
Efecto Pedal "first world tour of pedal cinema" claim	contestedResearch correction:Neither claim is a verified world-first; both are reported here with dates instead.The claim appears in Efecto Pedal's own branded coverage [74]; Market Chile ran a comparable, separately licensed event on 6–8 November 2014 [75], about one month before Efecto Cine's 4 December 2014 launch.	Promotional / press-reported — not verified	^8,9

Status and last verified

Every organization on this site carries one of seven status values — active, dormant, paused, uncertain, inactive, historical or defunct — and a last-verified date stamped in the month the record was checked. An operator's website can stay online for years after activity stops, so "active" means recent, dated evidence of operation was found, not that a page exists. Any status other than active carries a short note giving the reason — funding ended, a founder moved on, the season is over. A status verified this month carries more weight than one not rechecked for a while.

Checklist graphic contrasting common promotional claims with the telemetry an evaluator should request — Red-flag checklist graphic: “100 W per person”, unmeasured kWh targets, “first in the world” — and what to ask for instead^{5,6,7,1,9,2,3,4} Image: BicycleCinema.org, drawn from the research corpus

An organization this site does not link

A UK organization foundational to the pedal-cinema scene there from the mid-2000s is now defunct, and its lapsed web address has been taken over and serves content with nothing to do with bicycles or cinema. This site does not name or link that address; the organization itself is discussed on the relevant profile. What survives of its technical plans lives on through other, unrelated hosting — the do-it-yourself lineage described in the explainer on replication ^10,11. A search for the organization by its old name finds its historical footprint in press coverage, not a working project.

Chart: energy-conversion cascade across documented pedal-cinema systems — Chart: BicycleCinema.org research report (2026)

Claims that fail verification

Three claim types fail verification often enough to name. Round, large per-rider wattage claims: vendor language claiming "100 to 320 watts" or "100 to 250 watts" per average rider ^5,6, and a press account of a touring Brazilian operator averaging "about 200 watts" per cyclist ⁷, sit three to six times above the 50–60 W that operators and instrumented measurements converge on; the human-power explainer carries the arithmetic. Unmeasured energy-harvest targets: a 2015 Taiwanese Earth Hour event publicized a 25 kWh harvest target that was never measured or disclosed afterwards ¹. Superlatives — "first," "biggest," "only": Efecto Cine's marketing describes its 2014 Montevideo launch as the "first world tour" of pedal cinema, but a separately licensed deployment of the same underlying technology ran in Santiago, Chile, about a month earlier ⁹. Several of these are optimistic rounding or an unchecked assumption repeated in good faith; each is a place where the headline and the underlying number part ways.

Published shortfalls

Some operators publish unflattering figures. Karlsruhe's school operator reported that a live screening consumed about 30% of its buffer battery, and gave the reason — bikes sat empty late in the film ². Poland's Kino Rowerowe states that riders supply "up to 50%" of an event's energy, not all of it ³. Rock the Bike states its ultracapacitor bridge time in writing as "2–5 minutes, depending on consumption," rather than a single figure ⁴. A published shortfall can be checked against the same operator's other numbers; a round number with no measurement named cannot.

Nine questions to ask an operator

Condensed from this site's procurement checklist, in roughly the order they matter: Must the screening keep running if pedalling stops, or is a fade acceptable — and does the system on offer match that answer? What is the projector's manufacturer-rated power draw, and does it run natively on DC? How many riders does the sizing arithmetic assume, at what watts per rider and chain efficiency? What is the buffer's bridge time in writing, and does it exceed your slowest realistic rider swap? What battery chemistry sits inside any buffer, and does it have a working battery management system? How does the system rebalance load when one station goes idle? Can you see reverse-current protection and per-branch fusing in the wiring, rather than being told it is there? Will your audience's own bicycles fit the stands, or are certain wheel sizes and axle types excluded? Is there a written risk assessment, public liability insurance, and a named party responsible if something goes wrong?