LIKEBIKE MONTE-CARLO is proud to present our most radical exhibitor: SCHILLER X1 WATER BIKE. Over the last two years, Bill Norris has gotten used to one of the world’s richest men conspicuously parking his yacht in front of Norris’s home on the Hawaiian island of Lanai. It doesn’t help matters that Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle, now owns nearly everything on the island including all the hotels, the water company, the movie theater and half the roads. But in a few weeks, Norris is going to get a toy that Ellison doesn’t have. And Norris, who like Ellison is a self-made businessman, can’t wait to show it off. Thanks to a lucky family connection, Norris is first in line to get a Schiller X1, a sleek watercraft that combines the best of bicycle engineering with bleeding edge nautical design. The team behind it happens to include two members of Team Oracle, who signed on with Schiller after winning the Americas Cup last year. “I’m going to make it my business to pedal my Schiller bicycle around his yacht when I know that he’s on it,” Norris said. “When Larry Ellison sees these bikes, it’s going to make him crazy not to own a dozen of them.” Water bikes have been around since at least the turn of the century. But the Schiller X1 is a far cry from home-made kinetic sculptures or human-powered hydrofoils that will carry a person across the water provided nonstop, frenetic forward motion is maintained. “I had this crazy notion to design the most advanced water bike ever by bringing together the foremost experts in bicycle manufacturing, hydrodynamics and industrial design,” said Judah Schiller, CEO of Schiller Sports, the company he founded less than a year ago. Schiller’s success and the speed with which he’s realized it is almost as improbable as the original vision of biking on water itself. In the spring of last year, Schiller was CEO and co-founder of a design and innovation agency based in San Francisco. A disenchanted corporate lawyer, Schiller had found a sweet spot in product research and design. He had previously sold a consulting firm to Publicis, the third largest marketing group in the world, and Aiko, his new agency, was doing well. Clients included global brands like Samsung, Walmart and PayPal. Schiller had no reason to throw it all away. The water bike project started as a whim. Schiller was on a boat in the San Francisco Bay when someone mentioned that the bike lane on the new $6.4 billion Bay Bridge stopped in the middle of the bridge. It would be decades before anyone would be able to bike from Oakland to San Francisco, if ever. For some reason, Schiller still can’t explain exactly why, the limitation chafed at him. Though Schiller lives in Marin County and can easily bike over the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco, he became obsessed with finding a solution that would work for East Bay bike commuters. He started spending late nights on Google searching for “aqua cycles.” His research led him to an Italian water bike kit that allowed you to strap a regular bike to a pair of pontoons and connect the drive train to a propeller. It cost about $1,500. The design of the Shuttle Bike left something to be desired. It didn’t work with American-built bike frames. The more the bike was used, the greater the risk it would fall apart in the water. (Schiller discovered this after a ride ended with him clinging to a buoy in the bay). But the effect of biking on water was magical. Instead of being low in the water as he was in a kayak, Schiller found himself gliding over it. He could look down into the water, or across it. One day, about a mile off the coast of California, he found himself surrounded by dolphins. It didn’t take long before Schiller started dreaming about building the perfect water bike. It would be resilient enough to handle six-foot swells, but compact enough to fit in the closet of a small apartment. It would be designed to put the rider in the optimal position to enjoy the interplay of sun, water, wind and waves, and it would be engineered to survive the corrosive effect of salt water. It would require minimal maintenance and would be simple enough to be repaired by any competent bike mechanic. Schiller couldn’t get the idea out of his head, so he decided to try a crowdfunding campaign. He launched the project, dubbed BayCycle, on Indiegogo and publicized it with two attention-grabbing rides, pedaling past commuters on a ferry in the San Francisco Bay and then crossing the Hudson River from New Jersey to New York in ten minutes. The reaction was overwhelming. At the point that Schiller decided to stop paying attention to press coverage, he had already counted several hundred articles published in at least 20 countries. There was no question there would be a market for a better bike—and maybe even a huge one. It was time to get serious. Schiller shut down his design agency and went into startup mode. A friend suggested Schiller reach out to Marcus Hays, the founder of PiMobility. A former advisor to Lee Iacocca on electric vehicles, Hayes had been mentored by Paul MacCready, an aeronautical engineer famous for designing a human-powered aircraft and General Motor’s beloved electric plug-in, the EV1. Hays had the manufacturing and design experience Schiller needed, but he was initially skeptical of the project. Finally, Schiller persuaded him to take the Shuttle Bike out on the water. “That was an ah-ha moment,” Hays recalls. “In all the years that I had been cycling, I never understood how sensitive my radar was to buses, commuting vehicles and all the dangers that beset a cyclist in urban environments. Riding the water bike was the most liberating cycling experience I ever had.” The next eight months were a blur of product research and prototyping. Schiller and Hays looked at every imaginable bike and water bike, motorcycle and marine vessel, focusing on design and efficiency. “The big challenge was how to convert human power into propeller motion and thrust,” Hays said. “The best racing bikes are the ones that convert the most energy into motion, and that is also essentially true for the Schiller Bike.” By August, the fledgling company was ready to start taking orders. Schiller Sports moved into a building on the San Francisco Bay—fittingly shared with a seaplane adventure company. It put up a website offering the bike for $6,495 in four sizes and six color combinations. Within weeks, the newly hired office staff was fielding orders from all over the world, including former executives and a member of one of the world’s most prominent royal families. Lucky for Bill Norris, his step-daughter works as Schiller Sports’ chief of staff. Norris had the inside scoop when the bikes would go on sale, and he immediately bought a handful for Hawaii and his house in Sun Valley. I heard about the Schiller at the end of August, as news of the bike’s impending release began percolating on social media. Curious, I met with Schiller and Hays in Mill Valley and arranged for a test ride in Oakland. To check if the Schiller was living up to its promise of easy maintenance, I invited members of Spokeland, a local nonprofit, to join me the following weekend at Oakland’s Jack London Aquatic Center. Spokeland maintains a space in West Oakland where you can learn to fix your bike for free, and its expert mechanics can be relied on for unbiased opinions. Six of us rode a prototype in the Oakland estuary for about two hours. There were a few kinks–the pedal stroke was uneven and the steering wasn’t as responsive as the Spokeland members had hoped it would be—but Schiller and Hays assured us that was being addressed in the final version that customers would receive. In the meantime, it was easy to see what had prompted Schiller and Hays to drop everything in order to bring the water bike to market. There was a joy that came from being just above the water and a freedom of feeling at one with a high-performance machine. “I think it’s great,” said Ben Macken, one of Spokeland’s core members. “I’d like to load it up with some camping gear, a hammock, and a stove and take it down the coast, someplace I couldn’t get to with a bike or a car.” Unlike sailing, you don’t need lessons to learn to ride a Schiller Bike. Unlike wind surfing, you don’t need a strong upper body. And unlike kayaking, there’s no heavy lifting—the bike disassembles to fit into the trunk of a car or a closet. If the price puts you off, don’t worry. A Schiller concession could be coming to a shoreline near you. Along with luxury toy collectors and royals, Schiller’s early customers include hotels and small businesspeople who are investing in small fleets that they hope to rent out. At roughly half the price of a WaveRunner, Schillers could soon proliferate along lakeshores and beaches, offering a quieter, greener recreational alternative. If biking on water is your dream, the Schiller puts it within reach. forbes/sites/eliseackerman/2014/10/02/the-story-of-the-schiller-x1-the-worlds-most-radically-redesigned-bicycle/ #likebike #bike #monaco #montecarlo #waterbike #schillerx1 #design #luxury (5 photos)
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 13:43:32 +0000
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