With a game as expansive and malleable as Tears of the Kingdom, there are countless ways to solve puzzles, traverse the environment, defeat your enemies, or just have fun. As the game’s been out now just a couple of weeks, players are still discovering unique contraptions, and one that’s swiftly growing in popularity is not only incredibly effective, it’s quite simple to make. Introducing the “air bike.”
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom features a surprising combination of crafting and physics systems. And with Link’s new Ultrahand ability, players can combine all manner of items that interact with one another using simulated forces like weight and propulsion. The game also features an enormous open world, so inventive new ways to get around more efficiently are definitely of use. One of the most recent such products of player ingenuity requires nothing more than two fans and a steering stick, fused together in just the right formation to create an airbike that lets you cruise the skies, or get from point A to point B without much fuss. And as the core components are rather abundant, this is a reliably easy contraption to produce.
Tears of the Kingdom’s Air Bike improves on similar designs
Though the air bike has been gaining attention on Twitter and TikTok, I first caught site of the build on YouTube channel 2uncle2dane, where gaming YouTuber Uncle Dane thoroughly explains the benefits of this remarkably simple construction, particularly over that of the “goblin glider” that’s also been a popular contraption and requires the same components.
As you can see from the video, this device has a number of clear advantages: it doesn’t tip over too easily; it excels at transporting Koroks; and it even makes scouting the depths a breeze if you slap a brightbloom seed to the front of the bike to light the place up.
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As the video also points out, fans and steering sticks are very easy to get. You probably have a bunch of them already in your inventory. And while making the bikes requires a little bit of finagling at first, perhaps the only challenging part of getting the most out of the vehicle is being sure you have enough batteries to make a trip last for more than a few moments.
How to make the Tears of the Kingdom Air Bike
Making an air bike in TotK is pretty easy, though it might take you a couple of tries to line everything up. As documented on the 2uncle2dane channel, first you’ll need to find a flat surface to work on. Then drop two fans and your steering stick. Fans can be found, among many other places, in the Zonai Dispenser near the Jirutagumac Shrine (which you can find mentioned in this guide) and steering sticks can be found in the Dispenser near the Mayam Shrine, which you can activate while grabbing all the pieces of the Glide armor set.
Position one fan, propulsion side down, flat on the ground. Then stand in front of it and Ultrahand the steering stick in front of the wheel so that the front of the stick is facing you. Rotate it back just a little by holding R and pushing up on the d-pad and glue it into place on the upper lip of the fan so that it makes a wide V-shape.
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The steering stick should be sticking up in the air and you should see the prompt to ride it pop up when you walk near it (if it’s not placed quite right, you may get canceled out when attempting to ride the air bike, which wouldn’t be ideal).
You’ll then want to grab your second wheel and glue that to the front of the steering stick, also facing straight down, but slightly higher in elevation than the rear fan.
Once everything is assembled, you should be able to hop on and, in no time, you’ll be able to start easily hovering around. Like most contraptions with downward-facing fans, the air bike will have a tendency to ascend. That’s fine. To move forward, you’ll want to push up on the left stick to send that airflow behind you (as you would a helicopter in many other games), propelling you forward without gaining too much altitude.
And given that Ultrahanding isn’t a precise science, it’s more than likely that you’ll end up with a bike that’ll pull a little to the left or right. This is fairly easy to compensate for with gentle adjustments of the L stick while in flight. If your bike pulls a little too aggressively to either side, let it get some air before adjusting the direction. Otherwise, if it’s unmanageable, you’ll need to break the bike apart to fix it—and given that it’s only three pieces, that isn’t too annoying of a task. And if you’ve acquired the game’s Autobuild ability, once you’ve made a decent bike you can save it to your Favorites to replicate it any time without any fuss, provided you’ve got the resources.
You may want to attach a big battery to the front fan to increase its mileage. Note, however, that this will sort of screw with the bike’s center of gravity, meaning you’ll have to do a bit more course correction as you drift about.
Tears of the Kingdom features an impressive number of items and devices you can piece together using Ultahand. But as the air bike demonstrates, simplicity is often perfection.