Personal virtual reality bicycling has arrived in Japan and was unveiled for the first time at an introductory event held at the B&B Italia showroom in Tokyo's Gaienmae at the end of July for a select group of businessmen and investors.
This new type of virtual reality bike, called Ebove by its developers, is like no other in that, instead of just spinning in front of a video screen, you actually "feel" the road or mountain path you’ve chosen for your workout or race. If you’ve choose a mountain path, you’ll feel all the bumps, rocks, twists and hairpin turns along the way. When you go up a hill, the bike will tilt up and you need to switch gears and peddle harder. When you go downhill, the bike tilts down and you can coast, but you’ll have to use the brakes to avoid going over a steep cliff.
The Ebove EVR is represented internationally by Osaka-based company Knorthrun and was developed in Norway by a team of artists, engineers, mainframe architects and software specialists at Activetainment, led by co-founders Sondre Fossum and Jan Svoller. These two men brought two samples of their e-bikes to Japan for attendees to try, and they joined us for this interview.
As you’ll see in our video, the bikes are highly sophisticated, and rugged enough to handle a man weighing 130 kilograms or more.
These bikes can also use Wi-Fi to connect to the internet so that you can find and connect to other Ebove users globally.
© Japan Today
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JohnDigsJapan
Who's the attractive woman n the first photo? That's the important question! lol