Smarter Every Day Challenge: Learn the Backwards Brain Bike

Mike Boyd · 5.2M views · 2016-05-25 · 7:07

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

Mike Boyd takes up Smarter Every Day's challenge to learn to ride the Backwards Brain Bike, a bicycle whose steering is inverted, and rides 50 meters. It shows how hard it is to unlearn a motor skill.

On Hacker News

Used as a reference when discussing inverted-steering analogies and how hard it is to rewire a learned skill.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2018–2023

Topics

Neuroscience & the brain Education & learning Magic, puzzles & curiosities

What people said

aurizon · 2023-05 · Reference
This reminds me of the 'poisoned' clown bike, which has a geared stem that inverts steering, move bars in an arc to the right = bike goes left. [VIDEO]
Read the original HN comment ↗

hamaluik · 2020-04 · Reference
I had never really considered RTL design until I decided on a whim to support Arabic in an app [1], and before doing so I would have easily laughed at this. After doing so, I can completely understand it. It seems so simple—text just goes from right to left instead of left to right, but truly grokking that seems impossible for me. It's like riding a bike with the handlebars backwards [2]—it just doesn't work in your brain, as much as your higher-level thoughts seem to understand it. I was lucky that Flutter did almost all of the heavy lifting for me, but I spent more time than I'd like to admit ironing things out and I still don't think it's quite right. [1] [LINK] [2] [VIDEO]
Read the original HN comment ↗

jesusth1 · 2018-08 · Reference
Yeap, [VIDEO] this guy took a more serious attempt at learning to ride the backwards and it seems it didn't take him that much time.
Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Mike Boyd, played through YouTube.

HN Library · Source license

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks

SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources