I took several biomechanics classes as electives back in my undergrad, and in one assignment I remember comparing the energy outputs between the human and robot equivalents of different tasks, whether or not the robot was humanoid in how it was designed. The most impressive think that stuck with me is that humans are incredibly efficient, from an energy perspective, in anything we do, compared to machines. Every time we delegate a task to a machine, we are using several orders of magnitude of energy to do the same thing. For most tasks, it feels wrong, but it doesn't make me any more willing to give up my car. Maybe if I lived outside the US.

For more reference how insane 700W is, the average FTP of a world tour pro road cyclist (i.e., Tour de France) is ~350-420W/6-7W/kg. FTP (Functional Threshold Power) being the avg you can sustain for an hour without fatiguing.

My own is ~250W @ 3.12W/kg. I can't even hit 700W yet, let alone for over a minute. My 5 second power is ~640W.

Crazy numbers.

I am a nerdy blue collar electrician and that was incredibly interesting. Only 0.002kWH from that beast of a cyclist.

I would suspect my equivalency to be about 1/3rd a Robert [unit of measure from vidlink].

1hp/750W or so sustained is insane power for all but a few and that is still for relatively short time periods.

When I was 11 or 12 I powered an incandescent bulb with an exercise bicycle. I think it was 40 or 60 watts. I can totally understand why that guy was exhausted: 60 watts wasn't hard for me, because I used to ride uphill every day after school, but the other kids could only get a dim glow.

I can do 300W for 30mins - does that mean I can barely heat up a Pop-Tart?

... at 1:03 he hits steady 700W. At 1:29 shows they kept increasing the incline at least to 40 degrees. Why not keep it at the same incline? . . .