When Judah Schiller heard that the bike lane on the Bay Bridge (connecting San Francisco and Oakland) was going to stop halfway across, he was challenged to find a solution. He lives in the town where mountain biking was invented (Mill Valley) so it seemed natural to try something new with a bicycle.

“Last September I made the first-ever bike ride across the San Francisco Bay. Back then I was using an old Italian Da-Vinci-esque flotation system that I attached a road bike to, which actually worked, but it was not a very good user experience. It had all sorts of inefficiencies and I said I’m going to make the best water bike in the world and that’s where this all started.”

Today Schiller is selling a water bike (the X1 for $6495) that combines bicycle technology with a bit of boat and even “hot rod motorcycle” design (propellers mounted on reaction arms to turn in unison) and he thinks it’s the next step for a planet of 2/3rds water.