Everyone can ride a bike.
But not this bike.
See this bike, only goes backwards.
So I challenged a bunch of people to ride it.
If they can go ten meters, they get $100.
Before we can ride this deathtrap.
We have to build it.
Now, I didn't feel like building a bike from scratch.
So here's one I picked up off Kijiji.
Normally you can't pedal a bike backwards
because there's a ratchet in the rear hub.
So if you pedal backwards, it just goes
Brr
We can bypass that ratchet.
But then we'll be able to pedal both backwards and forward,
and we just want to be able to pedal backwards.
So instead we can flip the whole rear wheel around,
which puts the cassette and ratchet facing the other way.
If we also flip around the pedals and crank,
we get a bike that now pedals backwards.
Next we take the chain and install it in a figure eight instead of a loop.
So pedaling forward makes you go backwards.
Now we're done.
That's it.
That was the whole build.
You watched the entire thing.
Before we spring this on our hapless victims, though,
I should probably give it a ride myself
and see how difficult this thing actually is.
See, while I can ride a bike, I can't actually say how I can ride a bike.
I just get on it and go.
Buried somewhere in my brain is an algorithm for remaining upright
and steering where I want to be going.
If I switched to a backwards bike, my body is still going
to go through the actions for riding forwards, which won't end well.
I need to learn a whole new
strategy and learn it well enough that I can just hop on and ride.
The second problem is: bikes balance in weird, counterintuitive ways
when they're going forward.
A bike rolling forward tends to stabilize itself because of its steering geometry.
Leaning to the left tends
to produce steering to the left, which makes the bike lean to the right.
This is stable, negative feedback.
Even without a rider, a bike will remain upright if it's going fast enough.
But when we're going backwards, steering to the left will make the bike
lean to the left, which will also push the steering further to the left.
This is unstable, positive feedback, and even at high
speeds, the bike will topple over left to its own devices.
So how do we fix that?
We can't.
In order to ride this thing,
we're going to have to fight that instability every step of the way.
Which takes us back to our first problem.
I have no idea how to do that.
But what do you do when you don't know how to do something?
Practice.
What a mess!
That's working.
We've got to go somewhere drier.
Riding this thing backwards is about as hard as I expected.
So I definitely need more practice.
And what would really help with more practice is if it had a cooler paint job.
So let's just strip it down and then we'll go do that.
Can we get the “graphic design is my passion” meme?
Up on screen.
Perfect.
I love it.
We need your thoughts on the bike paint job here.
Well, I think it's actually hazard yellow.
Is what it is.
I give up.
We're going for a classic black.
All right.
Of all the things I've painted, this is definitely one of them.
But what would make it look way better?
Some stickers.
From Hacksmith.store.
I'd say that's a
tasteful number of stickers.
Owen, it's just a bicycle with some stickers on it.
You don't need to be that dramatic with beauties.
Just. It's just stickers.
C’mon let's just go for the test.
We brought the backwards bike to the University of Waterloo.
I've got a sign.
$100 burning a hole in my pocket and an endless supply of unsuspecting students.
Let's see if any of them can ride it.
Of course, when riding a bike, especially a backwards bike,
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I'm going to put on my real helmet, though.
Our first contestant is a fourth year engineering student, Jacob.
Jacob, how do you like your odds here?
I don't know.
I feel like I've seen this type of video before it and usually doesn't end well.
He's got a point.
Let's give this a go.
Yeah. Yeah.
This is much more difficult than I expected.
That was that was pretty smooth.
Got a bit of a lean to it.
Jeez.
Okay.
I think that's it for me.
Alright man thanks for giving it a try.
That is difficult.
On a scale of 0 to 10.
How rideable is this bike?
Negative seven.
OK. OK.
You got to pedal forward.
Wait you gotta pedal forward?
You gotta pedal forward it goes backwards.
Ohhhhh!
This is so hard.
We might actually lose $100 here.
All right, so you were pretty confident earlier you could do the ten meters?
I watched a YouTube video.
Did you now..
Ohhh! It's so scary, dude.
I think it's impossible.
You might be right.
Oh great.
It’s really hard and really scary
because I’m way too small for this bike.
Whoa, whoa.
That is definitely the best run we've had, I think.
Oh, man.
You good?
I think I just gotta gun it.
Okay.
Maybe I don't gotta gun it.
All right, next up we have..
You guys can call me Toby.
All right, Toby, you're all. You're going the other way.
Where's my money?
So the question is, guys, does that win the hundred bucks?
I mean, I did the 10 meters.
All right.
We will.
Going forward point out that that doesn't count in the future.
But I am quite impressed
that you were the only person to try that.
Nicely done, man.
At this point,
someone sent a text to a group chat for their entire class in the building next to us.
and they all decided this was more fun than a calculus tutorial.
How far do you think you're making it?
I can get the ten meters.
All right. I like that.
I want to see it!
Oh, oh, oh!
I think I got the strategy.
Oh! Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!
So close!
If I can practice it can be rideable.
We've got.
Hussun.
Oh, okay. Okay.
This is a lot harder than I thought.
I’m so scared.
Oh ohhhhh!
It’s really not going straight.
Got a plan? No.
Oh, never mind.
Oh. Oh, oh, oh.
Dude!
I was close!
Nicely done man.
The best I can do is a curve
because the steering falls away from you instead of self-correcting.
So you got to kind of like wiggle it.
Crowd: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh
At this point, we were ready to leave,
thinking that Toby was our only winner,
partially because we didn't think anybody else would be able to do it.
And also because we were out of release forms for people to sign.
But then when we had our backs turned, we heard the crowd cheer
Turn around and found that someone had actually managed to do all ten meters.
While we weren't recording, we couldn't believe it.
We scrambled and managed to dig up one more release form for her to use
and this is what happened.
So we have one final contestant here, this is Jennifer.
Jennifer is going to take one last go at this for tonight.
Oh, so much pressure now.
Everyone's watching!
You got this.
Come on. Believe in you. We believe in you.
Let's turn around.
Yeah.
Oh, oh, oh.
Oh, oh, oh!
So close!
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
All right.
Public voting.
Yeah!
Let’s go!
Congratulations.
Thank you so much!
Whoa yes!
So the final conclusion. Scale of 0 to 10.
How rideable is this bike?
Negative seven. I agree with the minus seven.
I think it's pretty rideable honestly.
Zero..it really is hard.
Okay, fair enough.
Uh, -50.
That's the lowest score.
And yet.
You want 100 bucks. Thank you so much.
Hey. Thank you!
We started this project a month ago
thinking, gosh, I got plenty of time..
Thinking great, we've got so much time.
I just learn how to ride this thing.
But it didn't quite work out like that.
This thing is up there with YouTube's other great unreadable bikes.
We've definitely completed
the Triforce of impossible bicycles, although this is possibly the
Ow.
Although this is possibly the most
impossible of them all.
And if you have any other insane project ideas
that we should bring to life, let us know in the comments down below
and make sure to check out Hacksmith.store
where you can see all of our cool merch
like these waterproof stone paper notebooks.
Thanks for watching.
You know, I still think I can do this.
Let's give it a few more tries..