Most People Don't Know How Bikes Work
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN links it in threads on bikes, countersteering and control systems as the clearest demonstration of how bikes actually steer and balance.
What it is
Veritasium explains why bicycles are stable, arguing that gyroscopic effects are not the answer. The video shows countersteering and an experiment where riders blocked from steering the opposite way cannot turn.
Recommended by 7 HN commenters across 4 different months, 2021 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec Brajeshwar · 2023-03 · on “Bicycle”
You will love the interesting video, "Most People Don't Know How Bikes Work" by Veritasium - [this video]
Recommends whycombinetor · 2022-06 · on “You need to know what right-half-plane zeros are”
Indeed. I like this clip where they show bike steering to the left, without its front wheel ever going to the right side of its original path, by only leaning and no countersteering. [this video]
Recommends BrianHenryIE · 2023-03 · on “Bicycle”
Beautiful article. There's a similar neat video, "Most People Don't Know How Bikes Work", where they fix the steering so the handlebars can only be turned left, and people then aren't able to turn left. [this video]
Recommends ubj · 2023-03 · on “Bicycle”
Beautifully illustrated and brilliantly explained. Derek Muller (Veritasium) on YouTube has a related video diving into the mechanics of bicycle riding. It shows what happens if you prevent the rider from performing the countersteer before leaning into a turn [1]. [1]: [this video]
Recommends flavius29663 · 2023-03 · on “Bicycle”
Veritasium did a video where they stopped him from counter-steering and couldn't steer anymore. [this video] He might be wrong, and just didn't know enough, but he is usually researching his videos very well and I would be surprised for him to be wrong about this.
Recommends jasonpeacock · 2024-04 · on “How does this full-track, 3-wheel snow bike even turn?”
Here's a good video showing how a bike actually works, and the relation between steering and leaning: [this video]
Recommends nitwit005 · 2025-11 · on “You should write an agent”
> You only think you understand how a bicycle works, until you learn to ride one. I realize this is just for motivation in a subtitle, but people generally don't grasp how bicycles work, even after having ridden one. Veritasium has a quite good video on the subject: [this video]
Cites kevmo314 · 2021-12 · on “Learning how to ride a bike”
As someone who can ride aggressively without handlebars, you counter steer even without touching the bars. [this video]