Ananova:

A Taiwanese inventor has created a face-to-face tandem, and is in negotiations with factories to have it mass-produced.

Chen Yugang, the director of a creation centre at Far East University in Tainan city, took a year to build the bike, reports local TV station TVBS.

"On a traditional two-person bicycle, the rider in the rear seat can only see the back of the one in front. So I started wondering how I could get them sitting face-to-face," he said.

His new bicycle can be ridden face-to-face, conventionally or even back-to-back as the seats rotate and the gears can be set to move the bike in either direction.

"The bicycle is very easy to change. Any person can change the riding mode in around 10 seconds without the help of tools," says Chen.

"Face-to-face is suitable for a parent and child, or dating couples, while the back-to-back mode gives both riders a good view, and the one at the back can have both hands free to shoot pictures or eat snacks."

Factories have expressed an interest in the bicycle, and the inventor hopes it will start to appear on streets very soon, reports China News Network.

Chen says he is also seeking to patent his invention in the United States, Germany, Japan, and China.