*promote awesome science. I love being able to see the moment his brain changes. Great!
I also love his proving that something everyone "knows" is wrong. That's how progress happens. Bravo.
...also....
Really, no one tried it no handed? When I rode every day, I could start from a standing stop with no hands. Probably not today.

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Friday, April 24th, 2015 4:51pm PDT - promote requested by newtboy.

I'll bet if he used a balance bike like http://www.balancebikeoutlet.com he could learn in 2 weeks. He was trying to learn the balance and the pedals at the same time, but if he just focused on the balance he would pick up the new way in no time.

If you want to experience something similar at home, take a game controller and invert the Y axis in a first person game that you've played a lot. Play until you get the hang of it and then switch back. See how long it takes you to readjust.
You're engaging fewer motor functions but you should feel the bewildering and frustrating sense of everything being backwards and the experience of retuning your brain.

Back in the days, Y axis mapping was neither standardised nor adjustable, so many of us went through this back and forth countless times. As a result, it takes me just a few seconds to adjust to an inverted Y axis on an input device.

An inverted X axis on the other hand wrecks my brain in any fast-paced situation.

Friends don't let friends play inverted.... http://videosift.com/video/Inverted

Throwing a ball with your non-dominant hand also comes to mind.

Absolutely fascinating that he could pinpoint a very distinct threshold between "nope, can't do it" and "oh yeah, that's how that works". I bet behavioral psychologists / neurologists would love to develop experiments that test to see if other people notice the same phenomenon...

Next step, repeatedly going from one to the other and see if the brain can be trained to switch faster.

It was really strange watching him 'get it' when riding a normal bike again. Another great video from Destin.

I think this is analogous to what happens to someone who has a stroke, and needs to learn how to walk, or talk, or ____ again. The pathway they used before to do that thing was broken, so they need to build a new pathway to relearn how to do something they used to know.

Pretty good video. Commander Hatfield is awesome. What is with the "Proverbs" at the end of the video?

Would not even try this, i've rode a bike for 35 years, never used a car so it's my only method of transport and needless to say, i'm pretty good at it, really a second nature since i ride more than i walk... I already often think when going downhill what would happen if my brain messed up and started thinking backwards... Steering with your hands crossed, you only need to do it couple of times before you come into same conclusion as this video. I'll rather have the wiring i desperately need than mess with it.

Looks like there's a bible passage at the end of all his videos. Noticing that caused me the rethink the meaning of the third thing he learned from this experiment.

"Truth is truth, no matter what I think about it. So be very careful how you interpret things because you're looking at the world with a bias, whether you think you are or not."

This reminded me of this girl at work that uses a mouse turned around backwards, where the cord is facing her belly. Every movement is reversed compared to how the rest of us move a mouse. Weirdest thing I've seen. Give it a shot yourself, although it's not near as difficult as riding this bike.

Similar to switching between flight sims and ground vehicle sims. I just can't imagine playing a flight sim like an FPS, or vice versa, despite being able to excell at both.

Also the difference between conscious action and reflex. They've done MRI scans of brains in highly trained athletes and when performing complex activities like dribbling a basketball, they're brains are hardly working because the activity functions basically on autopilot. Meanwhile, people who haven't done the activity before are thinking super hard and MRI looks totally different. Riding a bike seems very likely the same thing.