Ice Cream Bike — Pedal Powered Ice Cream Maker

Take the cranking out of your arms and into your legs for a more ergonomic method that taps into larger muscle groups,  yielding amazing results at your events. Crank out up to 2 gallons in only 20 minutes of casual pedaling! Our new Ice Cream Bike combines the wide size range and style of our steel Fender Blender Pro base frame — proven sturdy for human power use since 2006 — with a modified hand crank ice cream maker from Country Freezer — they’ve been stirring up frozen goodies since 1995.


Casual pedaling effort — you can wear street clothes, even a dress and flip flops.

Take the cranking out of your arms and into your legs for a more ergonomic method that taps into larger muscle groups,  yielding amazing results at your events. Crank out up to 1.5 gallons in only 20 minutes of casual pedaling! Our new Ice Cream Bike combines the wide size range and style of our steel Fender Blender Pro base frame — proven sturdy for human power use since 2006 — with a modified hand crank ice cream maker from Country Freezer — they’ve been stirring up frozen goodies since 1995. The rust-proof gears, stainless steel canister, and a leak-proof, Amish-made White Oak tub are good for years of use.

This is a serious rig capable of generating many smiles. If you’re serious about doling out sweet treats at your event, the Ice Cream bike can pump out up to 4.5 gallons of ice cream an hour! I scream, you scream… With the Ice Cream Bike, they all will scream “Ice Cream!”

Great for events with kids, who will be fascinating with the mechanical workings and delighted with the tasty results. Kids as young as 12-14 can pedal the bike and handle the level of exertion required. Activate their minds and bodies as you combine local ingredients and their good clean Pedal Power with a positive message about energy conservation, fitness, and nutrition.  The whirring and stirring noises from the machine are pleasant and won’t get in the way of teaching moments, oohs and aahs. You’ll be nourishing them with calcium, too!

Kids love figuring out how the mechanical energy passes from the pedals to the ice cream tub.

Ice cream is an awesome crowd pleaser, a standout even among our event-tested Pedal Powered activities such as Bike Blending or Pedal Powered Spin Art.  From start to finish, each batch is an immersive activity that creates a lasting memory. Here’s how it’ll work:

1. Prepare the custard ahead of time. It must be chilled for best results.
2. On the day of your event, pour the custard into the stainless steel canister — up to 1.5 gallons!
3. Close the top using the Country Freezer’s foolproof locking pin.
4. Run the stretchy slip-proof belt from the bike’s drive wheel up and over the large white pulley on the modified Ice Cream maker. This happens in seconds once you get the hang of it.
5. Pour in the ice and rock salt. One standard ice bag per batch.
6. Pedal! The Fender Blender Pro base frame can fit riders from 4’10″ to over 6′! About 15-20 minutes of casual pedaling is enough.
7. Pop the belt off, open the canister and serve instantly! Scooping the ice cream directly from the canister gives your crowd the satisfaction of seeing their labor pay off, and the motivation to make more.
8. Empty or strain the icy water, then repeat. In the photo below see how the bucket hinges to allow easy dumping.

A hidden hinge allows you to easily dump the icy ‘brine’. You can strain and reuse the ice for the next batch.

Encourage creativity! Have your event attendees craft the next flavor by combining their favorite swirl-in ingredients like berries, cookie crumbles, or coffee into the base custard. Just as food tastes better in the great outdoors, Pedal Power can turn your latest concoctions into true delicacies.

An Ice Cream Bike is a hit at events year-round, indoors or out. Fairs, concerts, conventions, gala dinners, trade shows, food cart gatherings, and summer camps — any crowded event is an opportunity to spin up a Sundae. You can even combine an Ice Cream bike with a bike blender for amazing milkshakes.  Satisfy the specialty dietary needs of your audience, with low-fat alternatives like frozen yogurt, or dairy-free recipes such as sorbet.  Team up with a local dairy, egg, or berry farm and you might find a low-cost or sponsored source of ingredients while and an opportunity to co-promote their foods.

Features:

- Makes up to 1.5 gallons (6 quarts) of ice cream per batch. Works great on small batches too.
– Takes only 15-20 minutes of pedaling per batch — compare to 20-30+ minutes for hand crank!
– The action happens in the front, making ice cream churning more fun and social: pedalers can see the canister turn, the icy brine swirling and transferring it’s deep-freeze temperatures to the custard.
– Frame works for adults and teens — custom version available for smaller kids.
– Many good surfaces available for your organization or company’s name: the oak tub and large diameter frame tubing are great surfaces for branding which will show up in many photos from your events. We’re experts on custom-branding our bikes and can assist you with our branding options.
– Available in Blue, Orange and Red or your custom color.
– Comes with print frame assembly manual, and video instruction on set up and clean up of the Ice Cream Bike.

photo cred: Volker Neumann

Assembled dimensions: TBA

Weight: Ships in two boxes, which total to 90 lbs.

Prices:

To Purchase: $3,600
Additional Canister: +$180

To Rent*: $750

* Price shown is for events in the San Francisco Bay Area. Please contact Rock The Bike to get your event in our calendar. For events in New York, please contact Ample Hills Creamery.

Above: Kids crowd around the Ice Cream Bike as it churns up goodies at Stomp!

Testimonial

“Rock the Bike’s Ice Cream Bike helped make our event special!  The bike was hands-on, great to look at and learn about, and then, delicious to enjoy.

Working with RTB staff was easy and enjoyable. I now want the ice cream bike to show up at all my parties!!”
     -Louella Hill, Coordinator for The Greenhorns speaking of Culture event at the Oakland Museum of CA

A happy pedaler churns the custard into Ice Cream at the 2011 SF Bicycle Music Festival. The ice cream sold out, raising funds for the event.

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• Recipe: 1 gallon of sorbet with the Ice Cream Bike

  
  Above: A pint or two of Coconut Almond Sorbet at the right consistency.

  Sorbet is a delicious vegan treat with lower fat than traditional ice cream. Below you will find a no-cook recipe to make 1 gallon of Toasted Almond Sorbet. Depending on your serving sizes, you can serve anywhere between 128 1 oz. servings and 32 4 oz. servings.

  Ingredients:

  • 2 – 32 oz. cartons unsweetened coconut milk
  • 2 quarts water
  • 4 cups sugar (1 32 oz. bag)
  • 5 Tbsp vanilla
  • 9 – 8 oz. bags of toasted almonds (can also substitute 72 oz shredded unsweetened coconut)

  The combined cost is roughly $40. If you sell 4 oz. servings at $4 each you could profit $88! If you use a cheaper nut than toasted almond, then you can cut your costs in half and increase profit to $100!

  Additional Things You’ll Need:

  A large spoon for mixing, serving bowls, ice, salt, and an ice cream scoop.

  How To Make Sorbet:

  Stir all ingredients together and pour into your pre-frosted canister (or pour into the canister and stir if you’re at an event). Secure the canister into the oak tub, and surround with ice and salt. Attach the slip-proof belt and begin to pedal your Ice Cream Bike for roughly 20 minutes until solidified. Serve immediately.

   

• Many thanks San Francisco Bicycle Music Festival: World’s largest Human Powered Music Fest.

   

  The 6th Annual San Francisco Bicycle Music Festival was our biggest ever and a milestone for our grassroots Human Powered Music Fest. Many thanks to the bands, fans, and our huge volunteer crew. Any one of the 3 phases of the day would have been epic enough. But we had a beautiful, idyllic daytime music festival in the park, an outrageous mobile party, and a post-modern urban block party all in one day. Daytime: 500+ people in a meadow, enjoying live music in the beautiful sunshine… Followed by a fire-truck dodging, freeway underpass screaming, Fossil Fooling LiveOnBike session, with captain Ariel using no electric assist to pull 3 performers and audio gear weighing 250 pounds on our Mobile Stage… Followed by a street party with an elevated stage,  a glowing Bike Tree, and a 3-person pedal powered stage lighting system.

  
  Rupa & The April Fishes perform at Golden Gate Park’s Log Cabin Meadow. Photo: Volker Neumann.

  
  We had 19 pedalers at the peak in Golden Gate Park! Plenty of power for our 10000-Watt sound system to run. In the distance you can see our Pedal Powered Line Array hanging from its bamboo tripod.
   
  
  We mobilized the entire festival on an outrageous LiveOnBike ride with yours truly, Fossil Fool, the Bike Rapper, performing with two bandmates on an elevated Mobile Stage towed by a Mundo. Above: the view from the Mobile Stage.
   
  
  Earlier that week… Load testing the Mobile Stage outside our workshop in Berkeley.
   
  
  We had stunning lighting at our night venue, Showplace Triangle. Three of our LED Stage Lighting panels, a renegade LED project hanging from the billboard over the stage, and the Bike Tree, El Arbol, all powered by 3 different pedalers. One pedaler did the greens, another did the blues, and a third did the reds. The tube on the left with red and green lights is the Pedalometer, which shows pedalers how hard to pedal.
   
  
  SHAKE YOUR PEACE! rocked their return to Bicycle Music Festival perfoming. Bandleader Gabe Dominguez is also the co-founder of San Francisco BMF.
  The large “880″ in the photo is the instantaneous wattage total. A single electric kettle or hair dryer uses up to 1500 watts, yet we were able to entertain hundreds of people with a total wattage of under 1000. Actually early in the day, an electric kettle did bring down our festival. A member of our volunteer squad plugged it in to our Pedal Powered Stage to have water to sterilize his cookware for our lunch. A fuse in our Pedal Power Utility Box blew. Another fuse blew before we started using our eyes to solve the problem. We saw a bright orange extension cord going all the way to our crew area. Aha!
   
  
  This rig required no electricity, and produced delicious Pedal Powered Ice Cream.  Each batch on the Ice Cream Bike takes about 20 minutes to churn.

  

  In keeping with Bicycle Music Festival tradition, our roadies transport all of of the loudspeakers, Pedal Power gear, food, banners, and festival gear to our venues by bike.

   

  

  Even our 18′ tall bamboo tripod, affectionately known as the Tarzan Tower, can be broken down to a 10′ bamboo bundle and hauled behind one bike.

   

• View the Photo Gallery for the Ice Cream Bike

  Check out all Rock the Bike’s photos from the workshop and our events! Click the picture below: