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'HoverBike' coming to Kickstarter next month (+ video)

Two questions: Is it a bike, and does it hover? Read on ...

When an email landed informing us that a HoverBike will be launching soon on Kickstarter, we got all excited here at road.cc. A bike, that hovers, and which you can buy? We're in.

Except having seen it, we're out ... proving the old maxim that, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Coming from Florida and launching on Kickstarter next month, it has a set of handlebars, a pair of wheels, a saddle, a frame ... and there, the resemblance to a bicycle ends.

What you do is take one of those Hoverboards that were all the rage at Christmas a couple of years ago - assuming it wasn't a cheapo version that burnt  your house down while charging, or didn't get confiscated by a PCSO because you were riding it on the pavement - strap it to the front and let it tow you along.

No chainset, no pedals, just a battery powered rudimentary electric vehicle.

Costing $179 at retail (with savings available for Kickstarter backers), we can certainly see a use for it as a cheaper version of a mobility scooter, and in a way it does look fun.

But a bike it is not, and it most definitely does not hover.

What we do know, however, is that there is such a thing as a hoverbike that does, you know, hover, because madcap British plumber-cum-inventor and YouTube star Colin Furze made one last year and here's the proof.

> Video: Colin Furze is back - with a HoverBike that flies

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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