The other week I was riding downhill in Grizedale (Devil’s Gallop), and I suddenly thought to myself “Why am I not falling off? Who’s doing this ?”. Meanwhile my arms were pulling on the bars, my weight shifting etc, unconcerned by such speculation. Then a few days later I watched a programme about the brain on BBC2, where a woman had “alien hand syndrome” where, after having the 2 halves of her brain disconnected to cure her epilepsy, her left hand (operated by the right side of the brain) kept hitting her in the face, or undoing her buttons while the left side of her brain (which does the talking) was unawares. It occurred to me that it could be the right side of my brain that knows how to ride a bike, while the logical, “thinky” left side looks on, having surrendered control.

This might explain why, when people tell me how to do some maneouvre “get your pedals so-and-so, lean there, pull up on the bars etc etc” I have no idea of how I might (a) remember all that (b) be able to do it!

Bit deep for a Friday (eve) there Simon…………. 😯

I used to teach technical courses (week long things). I’d regularly lecture for an hour while thinking about something completely different and have no recollection of what I’d said. I’d then have to ask the delegates what chapter we’d just done.

I still regularly “listen to myself” explain technical stuff with interest, often surprised at what I’m saying as I didn’t know I knew that.

So driving/riding stuff without thinking about it doesn’t register as odd at all…

Bit deep for a Friday (eve) there Simon

really? I wasn’t aware there was a special time for it 🙁

yes fasinating stuff when the corpus collusum is cut and the affect it has on contralateral control. There is a well recorded case of a gentleman fighting with himself in a newsagent over which paper to buy.

iirc they can also be shown objects to the non verbal side and not be able to verbalise it or be consciously aware of it yet they can pick it out of a line out but have no ability to say whetehr it is correct as they think it is a guess. Other areas also have communication between the hemispheres
Missed the show for what its worth and my knowledge is some years out of date.

iirc Lefties brains are reversed but that may be a myth cant fully recall
Riding a bike is what I call instinctal – you need to learn to do it like an instinct then you can chill and do it unconsciously..clearly you are a riding god…loki perhaps? Bez – egyotian Google that one 😉

old ages shows itself in many ways……….. 8)

clearly you are a riding god.

I think not! But I think it’s healthy to allow the other side to have control some of the time, particularly when my job as a programmer is all about logical analysis and synthesis, very left brain!

I suspect it also explains why I can never do the manual/compositional photographer bit. The right side of my brain that does the responding to visual stimuli, cannot read or understand numbers – I have never knowingly seen those little numbers in the viewfinder that tell you what the camera is doing, and if it gives up control I lose interest in taking pictures and start thinking about route finding or whatever 🙂

old ages shows itself in many ways

you and me both Ton 🙂

Riding a bike is what I call instinctal – you need to learn to do it like an instinct

hmmm, I don’t think instincts can be learnt, they’re hard wired, but also I think there are analytic left-brain riders who can dissect each movement into its component parts.

insticts cannot be learnt hence instinctal.Mmy kids are learning to balance/ride but we dont [generally]think about it when we ride that was the sort of thing I was getting at re leraning for it to be automatic. It has a posh name in learning but I forget what it is called.
it is like balancing in general if you dont think about it your body knows what to do.
Riding techy stuff or jumping you need to learn this stuff to do it without thinking. I agree we sort of watch ourself ride in a sense hence how smooth the best riders are

as I understand it, in normal brains the 2 halves communicate continuously through the corpus collusum (thanks Johnnie) and reach a continual accord, but I don’t like the idea of one half missing out…