Who said it was impossible to cycle on water? And who said we needed complicated high-tech technology to do that? In fact, who said ingenuity and manual ability weren't enough to do the trick? For those who might not have heard of it, the best story around the creation of an amphibious bicycle, and surely the most popular one, is the one of Mohammed Saidullah. It is as old as 1975 and as genius as it can get.

Mohammed Saidullah, a villager from Jatva-Jeneva in the Indian state of Bihar, mixed need with imagination and came up with a device that made him very famous. During the monsoon season of 1975, his village got heavily hit by floods, and he found himself begging a boatman to help him navigate his way through the floods in the search of provisions. The boatman refused, unless he paid.  

Not wanting to exhaust more of his modest funds, Saidullah had no choice but to turn him down and look for alternatives. Thinking of his bicycle which he, like many other poor villagers, regularly uses to move around rural areas, he isolated himself to craft and create during three long days, giving birth to a stunning, and yet very simple, amphibious bicycle. Taking his old bicycle, he added four rectangular air floats on its sides to allow it to float, and two fan blades to push it through the waters. The new vehicle could be used both as a bicycle and a boat. He named it after his wife Noor, which means light, and the Noor Bicycle began a life in the spotlight.

The news reached the Indian president himself, APJ Abdul Kalam, who granted him the National Innovation Foundation's (NIF) Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. Saidullah was also selected amongst 12 finalists for the prestigious Wall Street Journal Asian Innovation Awards. He was even sought after by BBC News and Discovery Channel for special coverage, and won many more awards.

It is spectacular how simple means can be turned into great things… He later invented a floating cycle-rickshaw as well that could take two additional people on board and his thirst for invention doesn't cease to grow…