...Pedal though I may with the joystick, the arrow on the power meter only flickers.
While rereading any posts I could find about problems pedaling the bike in the arcade room my attention was caught by something in the "
How to ride the bike in the arcade room" thread:
"Usually I started slow and accelerated, whenever I started to rotate a bit faster the arrow actually dropped so I tried even faster. The key is to do it rather consistent and SLOW!"
Even though this was posted in the Machinarium Android Version board, I would suggest you give the "consistent and SLOW" method a try before giving up on the game entirely.