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After 30 minutes of intense pedaling, Frederick Breeden leans into his handlebars and lets out an exhausted but contented sigh. Although he hasn't moved an inch, his biking has powered a paddle that stirs and thickens a 440-pound mixture in the huge stainless steel vat next to him.

It's the beginning of the process that will produce 1,700 bars of Breeden's all-natural soap and shampoos.

The liquid is a combination of olive, coconut and palm oils and lye. As Breeden pedals away, a chemical reaction occurs in the 55-gallon vat which changes the heat and consistency of the mixture. He then adds some organic herbs and spices, and pours the concoction into wooden containers which sit for a couple of days in an insulated chamber where the chemical process continues. Then Breeden cuts the hardening blocks into bars and places them in the "soap room" to cure for at least two months.

Breeden works at night in a studio adjacent to his Ashfield home, reserving the daytime hours for his family. He and his partner, Margaret Anderson, home school their two sons, Noel, 9, and Silas, 7.

Breeden, 43, who has been in the soap-making business for 13 years, has worked to keep his enterprise eco-friendly from the start. He began making soap as holiday gifts for friends and family and then graduated to tackling 80-pound batches which he would whisk by hand.

But Breeden, who developed his recipes and technique through trial and error, says he was determined to find a way to make larger amounts without resorting to electric power. Within two years he had come up with an idea. "I love to bike, so it seemed to be a natural direction to take," he says. "Legs are so much stronger than your arms, so I wanted to figure out a mechanism to switch to leg power."

Collaborating with Eric Bowman, a custom bicycle builder who was living in Sunderland, Breeden designed his bicycle blender in 1999. The apparatus is composed of a series of pulleys and bands that are connected to the bicycle's rear axle and turn the paddle blade in the vat. Depending on the oils, it takes anywhere from 20 minutes to three hours of pedaling to churn a mixture to its proper consistency. As the mixture thickens, Breeden's biking becomes akin to a challenging uphill trek.

"It's pretty exhausting at the end," he says.

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Breeden's soaps and shampoos, marketed as Just Soap, are sold in 120 stores throughout the Valley and across the nation, including New York, California, Texas and Florida.