Destin Sandlin Biography

Many know the saying, “It’s just like riding a bike!” (Meaning it’s really easy and something you don’t forget how to do.) A group of welders created a bicycle with a slight, but very critical change. They altered the direction in which the gears turned. If you turned the handle bars to the right, the wheel would turn to the left, and vice versa. Destin Sandlin, an aerospace engineer, was determined to ride the backwards bike. Despite his best efforts, he could not ride the bike more than a foot before wrecking. Destin had been able to ride a normal bike since the age of six. Yet at that moment, he could not ride this unique bicycle. What made the bike extremely difficult to ride when he was capable of riding a bike since age six? He realized a

Destin challenged audience members at his various presentations to ride the bicycle across the stage. For completion, he would give them $200. Many volunteers attempted. Time and time again, they all got the same results. None of them could ride the bike, let alone get across the stage! Another idea was revealed to Destin. Once you have a rigid way of thinking in your head, sometimes you cannot change that, even if you want to. Yet despite these mental obstacles, Destin was still determined to learn how to ride the backwards bike, but in order to do so, he would have to unlearn how to ride a normal bike. Each day, Destin spent five minutes attempting to ride the backwards bike up and down his driveway. Eight months later, he was able to ride down his driveway and back. However, any little distraction such as a phone ringing would cause him to crash. Eventually, his brain focused itself on the task at hand until he no longer wrecked His brain had finally carved a solid neuron path, allowing him to ride the backwards bike. Destin’s experiment was not yet completed. He attempted to ride a normal bicycle, but