Outside the leisure market, a community is growing. Early adopters are creating and recording routes, charting territory through Austin’s Lady Bird Lake and around France’s Cap d’Ail and sharing it on social media.
“You get a few people riding together and eventually, someone’s going to start racing,” Schiller says. “You get athletes to race and you’ve got a sport.” To that point: Schiller is in the final stages of organizing a waterbike race with a “royal-backed foundation” in the south of France next summer.
After biking the length of the yacht, I stop pedaling, stand up on the pontoons, and just float for a minute. My heart rate’s elevated, partly because I crushed a beer immediately before this, partly because waterbiking is one of those sneaky workouts you don’t really feel until you’re halfway through, and partly because of the thrill of being this far out on the water, raised up over it, feeling exposed, rather than down in it, cocooned in a kayak’s polyethylene shell or secure on the surface of a surfboard. Schiller calls it a “glass-bottom viewing experience.”
The water is too deep (over 200 feet) and too dark for me to see the rays and turtles and nurse sharks cruising below. (Perhaps for the best.) But I see the water. It’s right there. It’s like the difference between riding a regular roller coaster and a floorless one: the less between you and the elements, the better.
“You don’t have that on a kayak or a stand-up paddleboard. That’s why the Schiller bike is disruptive,” Schiller says, ticking off today’s favorite buzzword. The verdict is pending as to whether investors agree; Schiller is pursuing Series A capital this month with the aim to transform it from global beach resort fitness toy into a true industry.
I can tell you that the ride has definitely disrupted my out-of-shape self. Pedaling back to shore, against the current, requires more effort than I anticipated or am prepared to exert on vacation. But I make it back. Fortunately, Eddie isn’t there to see my sweat-drenched face.
I trot across the beach to my wife and flop on a fluffy, white lounge chair: “Water,” I croak. She side-eyes me, “Are you serious?”
My chances in the French summer race don’t look good.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.