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  • Unlearning how to ride a bike (smarter everyday content)
  • Rorschach
    Free Member

    [video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=30&v=MFzDaBzBlL0[/video]

    aracer
    Free Member

    Nice video, but he seems to be reading too much into it: “knowledge does not equal understanding”? What’s really going on is that you need “muscle memory” (otherwise and probably more correctly known as motor learning – learning to do something physical subconsciously) to ride a bike, as conscious thought isn’t fast enough. It’s all part of the standard repetition of skills to perfect sports stuff.

    Having learnt to ride a unicycle at 40+, I always point out that it’s actually a lot simpler and easier to ride a uni than it is to run – the difference is that we learn to run when we’re 1 or 2 (and fall over a lot in the process) and have no conscious memory of it being difficult. Riding a bike is a similar thing – most of us learned when we were young, and most of our kids are learning even younger, and will have no memory of not being able to ride. As is pointed out in the video, young kids also pick up something different like this a lot quicker – as a older unicyclist it very soon becomes obvious that kids who learn can pick up skills in a few weeks which I’ll never get.

    Having said that, I’m sure I could learn to ride that bike in a lot less than 8 months. I’ve tried one a couple of times, and whilst I’ve not successfully ridden, I’m fairly sure that the easy way to learn is the same way a lot of us teach our kids to ride normal bikes, by ignoring the pedals and scooting on the floor. Managed to go a few metres that way, and I doubt it would take that long to get going (but there are more fun things to do, will be clogging up the garage with one of these before I think about getting a backwards steerer).

    whatnobeer
    Free Member

    I think one of the problems here is that the reverse bike looks and is powered like a bike, but the act of riding it is so unlike a bike that the bicycle frame of reference just makes it harder to learn.

    I don’t know how long it would take an adult who’d never ridden a bike to learn to ride a normal bike, but I’d take a guess at them picking it up as quickly as the child as they’d have no preconceptions to over come.

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    TiRed
    Full Member

    Most people don’t realise that to balance a bike you steer into the fall. On this bike you must steer away from the direction of fall – permanent counter steer if you like. Nothing to do with gyroscopic effects. Even knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to ride, I’m sure.

    aracer
    Free Member

    I don’t know how long it would take an adult who’d never ridden a bike to learn to ride a normal bike, but I’d take a guess at them picking it up as quickly as the child as they’d have no preconceptions to over come.

    Unlikely – as he pointed out in the video, his kid who picked up the backwards bike much quicker had the same level of preconception. Kids brains are much better than adults at learning things like this.

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