--- title: "Jaw-dropping moment biker rides a motorcycle 25 MILES on a river, 17 years after sinking at 20 meters!" url: https://badiyaa.com/zhang-xue-motorcycle-water-guinness-record/ published: 2026-10-28T02:17:00+00:00 modified: 2026-10-28T02:17:00+00:00 section: Offbeat publisher: Badiyaa --- # Jaw-dropping moment biker rides a motorcycle 25 MILES on a river, 17 years after sinking at 20 meters! ZXMOTO founder Zhang Xue covered 40.74 km on the Chen River in Hunan on October 25, beating the old 31.8 km mark under Guinness adjudicators' GPS checks. He sank four times at 20 meters. Seventeen years later he rode the same idea for more than 40 kilometers. On Sunday, October 25, Chinese motorcycle maker Zhang Xue skimmed a modified dirt bike across the Chen River in his hometown of Mayang, in Hunan Province, and walked away with a Guinness World Records title: the farthest anyone has ridden a modified motorcycle over open water. The final tally: 40.74 kilometers, or about 25.3 miles. The old mark stood at 31.8 kilometers. Clips of the bike planing over the river spread fast, and one news-agency upload of the run had passed 138,000 YouTube views within about a day. ## Is it real? Yes, and that matters, because “motorbike rides on a river” is exactly the kind of clip that usually turns out to be an edit or an AI render. This one was adjudicated on the spot. Guinness officials watched the attempt and checked the distance with GPS data, timing and video before adjudicator Xiong Wen confirmed the result after the final lap. Rescue boats and medics waited on the water in case Zhang came off. The trick is speed plus flotation. The machine, a ZXMOTO MX450 off-road bike, picks up pace on land and then rides out onto the surface. A ski at the front does the steering, extra floats keep it up, and the spinning rear tire shoves water backward to drive it forward. The team also fitted a bigger fuel tank and sealed sensitive parts against spray. Zhang said the hardest part was not going straight but turning. Every bend demanded tight control of his line, his body weight and the throttle, and he had to do it again and again over six circuits of the course. ## The numbers, worked out Here is how far Zhang moved the bar, using the figures confirmed by the record keepers: - 40.74 kilometers minus the old 31.8 kilometers is 8.94 kilometers, so he beat the previous best by roughly 28 percent. - Split across six circuits, each lap averaged about 6.8 kilometers of open water. - His first try in 2009 ended after 20 meters. Sunday’s run went 40,740 meters, which is more than 2,000 times farther. ## From repair-shop apprentice to record holder The comeback angle is what turned a stunt into a story people kept sharing. Zhang, born in Mayang in 1987, left school after junior high and learned the trade as an apprentice in a motorcycle repair shop. He later worked as a stunt rider and mechanic, helped develop bikes for other brands, co-founded the manufacturer Kove in 2017 and set up his own company, ZXMOTO, in April 2024. Back in 2009 he tried the water ride with homemade modifications. He fell in four times. This time he had a factory team, and they spent five months testing flotation, waterproofing and engine setup before the attempt. The MX450 was also close to entering mass production, which Zhang said made the timing right. The record also lands in a big year for his brand. ZXMOTO joined the Supersport World Championship in 2026, and rider Valentin Debise won both races at the Portuguese round. A motorcycle press reviewer noted that the record bike was modified far too heavily to say much about how a showroom MX450 performs, and that record attempts have become a way for bike makers to grab attention away from the racetrack. ## “Just keep going” Zhang framed the ride as a homecoming. “The spirit of perseverance comes from this land,” he said, adding that he wanted the world to see Mayang. Asked what he would tell his younger self, he did not hesitate. > “If I could meet the person I was 20 years ago, I’d tell him: You’ve done a great job, young man. Just keep going.” The new benchmark for anyone who wants to try is now 40.74 kilometers, set on a river in rural Hunan by the rider who once could not make it past 20 meters. ## Further reading - [Wikipedia: Zhang Xue (entrepreneur)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Xue_(entrepreneur)) *Image: PanShiBo, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons* *This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*