8 ms·

This reminds me of the backwards brain bicycle a bit [1]. I get that the argument they’re making here is one of physics - but failing to ride a counterintuitive

This reminds me of the backwards brain bicycle a bit [1]. I get that the argument they’re making here is one of physics - but failing to ride a counterintuitive bike isn’t something that can just be ‘done’ without a lot of practice! [1] https://youtu.be/MFzDaBzBlL0 https://youtu.be/MFzDaBzBlL0

maaaats 9y ago
I have been trying to ride the other way on my fixie[0] lately. I think this is kinda the same. I know what I have to do, but instinctively it all gets wrong. I can kinda override it, but then my reactions are way too delayed. So here's hoping for it will click some day.. [0]: A fixie is a bike with no freewheel. So the pedals follow the back wheel, and the other way. So if I pedal backwards, the bike goes the other way.
- stevehawk 9y ago
  huh.. I grew up on a fixie.. I wonder if 20 years later I would just pick it up again.. or 30 years later.. note to self knock up wife.. get child fixie bike.. take bike for self when kid is at school xD I'm sure the experiment will be worth the college debt.
  - mattstreet 9y ago
    I believe you can buy hubs that are single speed and then if you flip them are fixie, might be cheaper to put that on a cheap bike than having a kid...
    - piva00 8y ago
      Yup, they are called flip-flop hubs, quite common and a bunch of bikes come with them installed so you can always choose between singlespeed or fixed gear.
- kaybe 9y ago
  The sport trick cycling has this in a lot of tricks. You might find some advice there if you want.
  - maaaats 9y ago
    A quick search yielded this as the top result [1], incredible! I'm going to blame you for breaking my neck when I attempt this later, haha. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUiiJI_tPVk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUiiJI_tPVk
    - kaybe 9y ago
      I used to do that as a kid (stopped before I could do all the tricks in the video). You want to have a suitable underground(1) and a friend to catch you the first few tries until you know where the bike goes when you fall. The main path to injury is falling onto the bike. If you avoid that it's way safer than football/soccer. Note that the bikes in the video have a different center of mass from normal bikes so it's easier to get the front up. Have fun! (1) In Germany we do this in clubs and proper sports halls as seen in the video with elastic flooring. Don't attempt tarmac until you definitely know what you're doing.
      - avar 9y ago
        I also recommend learning to ride a unicycle for people who want to get better bike skills. It's like riding a bike except with a brand new plane of movement. It's also very safe to try out and do, which is counterintuitive to most people who haven't tried. Overwhelmingly the most common failure mode on a unicycle is that you just stop riding it, and then it either gets ahead of you or behind you, and you hop onto the ground. Your body's also always approximately vertical no matter what they incline you're riding up/down is. So e.g. riding down stairs on a unicycle is much safer than on a bike, if you screw it up you just let it roll ahead of you and you're standing on the steps. I'll do that without hesitation on a unicycle, but on a bicycle there's no way I'm doing that on on anything except a mountain bike I trust.
        9y ago
- rhinoceraptor 9y ago
  I can't ride straight backwards, but I can ride backwards in a circle from a trackstand fairly easily.
- dancek 8y ago
  Driving backwards is much more difficult than driving forward because the bike doesn't self correct that way and the steering is quite unstable. I tried to learn riding backwards last summer, too. Eventually I stopped because I needed the bike for actual riding and my knees preferred having a freewheel. A ridiculously low gear seemed to help, I tried 40x20 (on a 622 with 165mm cranks) for a while.
sumedh 9y ago
Back in the day I could easily ride a bicycle without using my hands from the start with just one or two pedal stroke. I believe riding a backwards bicycle would have been easier if you dont use your hands.
- skookumchuck 9y ago
  That's how to win his $200 prize!
tcfunk 9y ago
Reminds me of the time I learned Dvorak.
- justadudeama 9y ago
  I was going to say the same thing. And when I wen't back to QWERTY, it eventually switched and I could type fast.
  - xenadu02 9y ago
    It is possible to achieve high typing speed on both; I did just that for a few years by switching back and forth on a regular basis. In the end the inconvenience simply wasn’t worth it and I gave up.
    - justadudeama 9y ago
      Did you give up QWERTY or Dvorak?
      - lenocinor 9y ago
        Not the original commenter, but I had a similar experience, and gave up QWERTY. I point and peck the few times I have to use it (which isn't often, except on phones where it doesn't really matter for me) and that's worked well enough for me for many years.
- samstave 9y ago
  Random anecdote/fact; an ex GF in HS was Dvorak's niece... she didn't have very nice things to say about him, just said he was super full of himself. I was really interested in meeting him, but after all the things she had to say about him, I lost interest, and stopped thinking I would be "cool" to switch to dvorak.
  - dkersten 9y ago
    Good thing I chose colemak over dvorak ;) Off topic: I didn’t do it for speed though, I did it for typing comfort, and as someone who has had RSI scares, I’m really happy with my decision (and with my decision to get a Kinesis Advantage ergonomic keyboard). My two main activities these days are hand-intensive: typing and sleight-of-hand card magic. I need my hands to be in good shape! Honestly, I’m a little baffled by how few programmers use ergonomic keyboards, since their hands are so important to what they do, but only a little, since it took me years before I finally bought one myself despite thinking about it for a long time (I regret not doing so sooner).
laythea 9y ago
Awesome link. Thank you.
- rkuykendall-com 8y ago
  His videos are amazing. I recommend Prince Rupert's Drop among many many others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe-f4gokRBs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe-f4gokRBs
skookumchuck 9y ago
A long time ago I saw a documentary where a guy wore special glasses that turned everything upside down. He wore them all day except when sleeping, and masked his eyes when sleeping. After a couple weeks, suddenly the world was right side up again. But taking the headset off, now everything was upside down.
- B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_M._Stratton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_M._Stratton Interesting dude. Experiments seem to have been about a century ago. (I thought I'd read that this had been done earlier, but Stratton comes up when looking for "glasses that turned everything upside down" as mentioned)
trumped 9y ago
I suspect that this one is more like if you were stuck in space with no propulsion and nothing to throw... so you can't move.

maaaats 9y ago

I have been trying to ride the other way on my fixie[0] lately. I think this is kinda the same. I know what I have to do, but instinctively it all gets wrong. I can kinda override it, but then my reactions are way too delayed. So here's hoping for it will click some day.. [0]: A fixie is a bike with no freewheel. So the pedals follow the back wheel, and the other way. So if I pedal backwards, the bike goes the other way.

stevehawk 9y ago
huh.. I grew up on a fixie.. I wonder if 20 years later I would just pick it up again.. or 30 years later.. note to self knock up wife.. get child fixie bike.. take bike for self when kid is at school xD I'm sure the experiment will be worth the college debt.
- mattstreet 9y ago
  I believe you can buy hubs that are single speed and then if you flip them are fixie, might be cheaper to put that on a cheap bike than having a kid...
  - piva00 8y ago
    Yup, they are called flip-flop hubs, quite common and a bunch of bikes come with them installed so you can always choose between singlespeed or fixed gear.
kaybe 9y ago
The sport trick cycling has this in a lot of tricks. You might find some advice there if you want.
- maaaats 9y ago
  A quick search yielded this as the top result [1], incredible! I'm going to blame you for breaking my neck when I attempt this later, haha. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUiiJI_tPVk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUiiJI_tPVk
  - kaybe 9y ago
    I used to do that as a kid (stopped before I could do all the tricks in the video). You want to have a suitable underground(1) and a friend to catch you the first few tries until you know where the bike goes when you fall. The main path to injury is falling onto the bike. If you avoid that it's way safer than football/soccer. Note that the bikes in the video have a different center of mass from normal bikes so it's easier to get the front up. Have fun! (1) In Germany we do this in clubs and proper sports halls as seen in the video with elastic flooring. Don't attempt tarmac until you definitely know what you're doing.
    - avar 9y ago
      I also recommend learning to ride a unicycle for people who want to get better bike skills. It's like riding a bike except with a brand new plane of movement. It's also very safe to try out and do, which is counterintuitive to most people who haven't tried. Overwhelmingly the most common failure mode on a unicycle is that you just stop riding it, and then it either gets ahead of you or behind you, and you hop onto the ground. Your body's also always approximately vertical no matter what they incline you're riding up/down is. So e.g. riding down stairs on a unicycle is much safer than on a bike, if you screw it up you just let it roll ahead of you and you're standing on the steps. I'll do that without hesitation on a unicycle, but on a bicycle there's no way I'm doing that on on anything except a mountain bike I trust.
      - 9y ago
rhinoceraptor 9y ago
I can't ride straight backwards, but I can ride backwards in a circle from a trackstand fairly easily.
dancek 8y ago
Driving backwards is much more difficult than driving forward because the bike doesn't self correct that way and the steering is quite unstable. I tried to learn riding backwards last summer, too. Eventually I stopped because I needed the bike for actual riding and my knees preferred having a freewheel. A ridiculously low gear seemed to help, I tried 40x20 (on a 622 with 165mm cranks) for a while.

sumedh 9y ago

Back in the day I could easily ride a bicycle without using my hands from the start with just one or two pedal stroke. I believe riding a backwards bicycle would have been easier if you dont use your hands.

skookumchuck 9y ago
That's how to win his $200 prize!

tcfunk 9y ago

Reminds me of the time I learned Dvorak.

justadudeama 9y ago
I was going to say the same thing. And when I wen't back to QWERTY, it eventually switched and I could type fast.
- xenadu02 9y ago
  It is possible to achieve high typing speed on both; I did just that for a few years by switching back and forth on a regular basis. In the end the inconvenience simply wasn’t worth it and I gave up.
  - justadudeama 9y ago
    Did you give up QWERTY or Dvorak?
    - lenocinor 9y ago
      Not the original commenter, but I had a similar experience, and gave up QWERTY. I point and peck the few times I have to use it (which isn't often, except on phones where it doesn't really matter for me) and that's worked well enough for me for many years.
samstave 9y ago
Random anecdote/fact; an ex GF in HS was Dvorak's niece... she didn't have very nice things to say about him, just said he was super full of himself. I was really interested in meeting him, but after all the things she had to say about him, I lost interest, and stopped thinking I would be "cool" to switch to dvorak.
- dkersten 9y ago
  Good thing I chose colemak over dvorak ;) Off topic: I didn’t do it for speed though, I did it for typing comfort, and as someone who has had RSI scares, I’m really happy with my decision (and with my decision to get a Kinesis Advantage ergonomic keyboard). My two main activities these days are hand-intensive: typing and sleight-of-hand card magic. I need my hands to be in good shape! Honestly, I’m a little baffled by how few programmers use ergonomic keyboards, since their hands are so important to what they do, but only a little, since it took me years before I finally bought one myself despite thinking about it for a long time (I regret not doing so sooner).

laythea 9y ago

Awesome link. Thank you.

rkuykendall-com 8y ago
His videos are amazing. I recommend Prince Rupert's Drop among many many others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe-f4gokRBs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe-f4gokRBs

skookumchuck 9y ago

A long time ago I saw a documentary where a guy wore special glasses that turned everything upside down. He wore them all day except when sleeping, and masked his eyes when sleeping. After a couple weeks, suddenly the world was right side up again. But taking the headset off, now everything was upside down.

B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_M._Stratton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_M._Stratton Interesting dude. Experiments seem to have been about a century ago. (I thought I'd read that this had been done earlier, but Stratton comes up when looking for "glasses that turned everything upside down" as mentioned)

trumped 9y ago

I suspect that this one is more like if you were stuck in space with no propulsion and nothing to throw... so you can't move.