1920 Water Bicycle

 

“‘Swash!’ The craft took the water like a miniature liner being launched, the fore parts of the floats rising gallantly above the wavelets made by the wind, the bicycle-boat forging steadily ahead under the impetus given by the tiny screw. …Motorists hurrying along the Portsmouth Road stopped their cars, and our cyclist-sailor was soon the centre of a crowd anxious to witness some further demonstrations, which he good-humouredly gave.”

– Cycling Magazine, 18th June, 1914

From the 1890s onwards, the ‘bicycle boom’ saw inventors patenting every variety of bicycle, including many different types of water bicycle. The two main variation were those that floated on top of the surface and those that were semi-submersible like a boat, with their propellors underwater.

 

c1920 Semi-submersible Water Bicycle (Replica)

LENGTH: 52″

WIDTH: 29″

HEIGHT: 53″

(Now sold)

This style of water bicycle appears to have been made in the USA some time between 1900 and the early 1920s. The news agency photo below is dated 1923, while the Popular Mechanics front cover featuring a similar contraption is from July, 1919.

A friend fabricated this water bicycle in 2017. I had sold an original and he built this one for me before I dispatched the other one to its new owner. It’s an excellent copy and it would be impossible to distinguish it from an example that was built over a century ago. You can see me testing it in a video further down the page.

 

 

 

 

 

THE WATER BICYCLE VIDEO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WATER BICYCLES

 

 

 

 

 

POPULAR MECHANICS, July, 1919