Inverted Bicycle and Neurology

A couple of days ago, I was sent a really cool video:



The video is about a backwards bicycle: A bike in which turning the handlebars to the left causes the front wheel to turn right, and turning the handlebars to the right causes the front wheel to go left.

You might think that such a bike would be easy to master, just try some sort of trick like crossing your hands over or forcing yourself to turn in the "wrong" direction, but the bike has been proven "impossible." Everyone thinks that they can do it, that they have some special idea, but the truth is, YOU CAN'T RIDE THIS BICYCLE. The person for whom it was made claims to have spent eight months trying to master the inverted bike, and finally felt it "click" into place one day. He was now able to ride the inverted bike, but he soon discovered that he could not ride a normal bicycle anymore.

Then, he told his seven-year-old son to try the bike, and he, too, failed. For the younger boy, though, it only took about three weeks to master the bike, proving that childrens' brains have higher plasticity: They are more easily changed.

I think that this effect is fascinating: How we can grow up our entire lives doing something one way, and then change it so completely in eight months that we can't go back to the original way we did things. I feel that this applies not just to bicycle riding, but also to other aspects of life. We get used to something being one way, and then we just can't handle it being any other way!

For example, my old monitor had a setting where all of the colors were more vibrant, colorful, and more saturated. I turned this setting up all the way, to the point where it was ridiculous, and then forced myself to use the monitor like that for the rest of the day. When I logged on to my computer the next day, I didn't even notice the effect. I had gotten so used to it after a few weeks that when I used a different computer for something, I was shocked by how gray and washed out the colors looked in comparison! I felt that nagging me the whole time, until I finally got myself to ignore the colors. Upon returning to my computer, I was surprised again at how I could have possibly ever used the computer with such saturated colors!

Another example is typing on a keyboard. Suppose you suddenly had to use a keyboard where the keys on the left were moved to the right, and the keys on the right were moved to the left. It would take a lot of time and practice to get used to the keyboard, but then the original layout would seem unnatural and strange.

I think that this is an amazing effect: That, since everything is relative, a change between something you are used to and something new or different can be so startling.