A company named Manta5 in New Zealand has developed an electric bicycle that can be used on water—the Manta5 eBike.
The company describes its invention as half-bike and half-plane. It says riding one feels like normal cycling, but on the water. It uses a battery (电池), motor and underwater wings to move across water about 100 kilometers in five hours. The bikes are made to be strong, but still light enough to carry.
Manta5 was started in early 2011 by Guy Howard and Roland who are both passionate about cycling. They used to go cycling and fell in love with it deeply. Howard had wanted there to be more choices for would-be water cyclists, and when he met Roland, he decided to try and make that happen. It took the company eight years to develop the bike, but it was able to show a prototype (原型) in 2017. The company says that a short video of that first bike got 350 million views on the Internet.
The first bikes that Manta5 produced sold out in six months. It says that riders in New Zealand are already fans, and are using them to ride across lakes, rivers and ocean waves.
The company now hopes the bikes will become popular in the US as well. At $8,990, however, the eBike certainly isn't cheap.
Greg Johnston, CEO at Manta5, says that learning to ride the water bike is like cycling for the first time: You might have to try a few times, but it's a lot of fun once you get the hang of it. The company even believes that in the near future, biking across the water could be a sport, and even be included in the Olympics.
