$100 If you can ride this bike!

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Props to Toby, big brain moves right there

This video and the last felt very fluid, more so than some of the earlier videos. Some before felt a little bit corporate, like very strictly scripted and stuff, and I like the more personal feel in these videos! In the same video on James taking a break, they mentioned how they began to feel less personal and more like a company. This video makes it feel like some changes are taking place, and it was very fun to watch! It looked like everyone involved had a lot of fun making it! I really hope this continues, and both James and the rest of the team can continue doing what they love without it becoming a burden.💜

I was legit waiting, to see if someone would try to sit on it backwards, arms behind them 😂
And Toby feels like future Hacksmith Intern material for that big brain move.

It's been so fun seeing you from your start as an international intern at Hacksmith to a full fledged member to someone whom I actively look forward to seeing. I'm glad you've remained with Hacksmith. I'd follow you elsewhere, but as a Canadian I'm forever hopeful you'll continue to find success with Hacksmith industries.

Toby killed this video. Would love to see more of him as a host

I love how you call the students "unsuspecting victims"🤣it's true cause they had no idea what they were getting themselves into! I love these videos! Keep up the incredible work!

What if you combined this with Destin's reverse steering bike?

Fun fact, if you turn the steering wheel backwards you would defeat the castor angle and make it correct its way in the backwards direction instead of front direction, it’s the same as in a car where it self corrects after a u-turn but it would drift to a side in reverse.

as a mountainbiker that knows how to ride backwards (without the ability to pedal but nontheless) i have a couple of tips to do it better:
1: Resist the automatic thing where you start bending over the bars and try to rather sit more upright as you normally would when going forward.
2: Generally try to steer as little as possible as steering will acumulate more and more when you arent used to riding backward and will lead you to fall after seconds.

Yess more of these fun little projects please. I love watching them

I really like Toby’s presenting style- I’d really like to see more of him

I seemed to have unknowingly trained for this most of my life. I used to ride a lot of MTB street and would ride everywhere backwards, my nickname was "Backwards Ben" 🤣
There are a few key tricks to riding backwards.
1 - Don't look down at your front wheel, look at the horizon.
2 - Make micro-adjustments to your steering, big sweeping turns are difficult to recover from.
3 - Speed is your friend, it's much easier to control with a bit of pace.
4 - Practice, a lot of it!

From a 6-legged mega mech to a literal 1-minute build with spray paint and stickers. Loving the unexpected variety in projects as of late!

I love how this was a video about a "simple" bike, but you guys were able to make it entertaining. Thank you for always having fun and in turn making your videos fun to watch!

I would love more videos like this from the Hacksmith team, little comparatively low effort projects where the team gets to goof around with the public, and we as the fans get to know you have stuff cooking.

A self-riding bike might be pretty cool to see, especially if it compensates for leaning by steering like you mentioned in the video.

Great low-cost video. I would be more than happy to watch more videos like this. A+.

I'd love to see one where you adapt a bike so the pedals power the front wheel, and the handlebars turn the rear wheel. Essentially a forklift-steer bicycle.
Also, great to see so many students genuinely getting amongst it. I agree, that did seem more fun than calculus.

This channel grinding content for 10 years is respectable, props for dedication & consistency

love a simple fun video that isnt super crazy hard on you guys and still just as fun to watch :)

Simple build, still awesome content 😊 Keep on rocking guys ❤

Would be interesting to see the effect of inverted steering on this bike.

Maybe not the highest budget for your videos, however definitely one of my favourites! Love to see more like this!

I'm happy to see James is kinda back and I hope he is doing better and I hope he feels better you guys have inspired me so much ☺️

8:25 He’s the type of guy to use a ball of paper in a paper airplane contest!

Im so glad their putting more time and effort into their videos, its paying off

Hey Hacksmith, I was doing BMX in the past a lot, and there is a thing with riding backwards. Most of the time you do a 180° or something and use your momentum to drive backwards or ride straight up and then backwards down a quarter pipe. Shure you have to pedal backwards to not instantly stop. The point is, you can learn this, and it's actually way easier than you might think with just a bit of practice. A friend of mine had a free coaster rear hub which disengages when you go backwards for easier longer backwards riding. He was so good at it, sometimes he rode a mountain down backwards 🤣

I would love to see you guys tackle making Corvo's fold-able blade from the Dishonored video game series. My gut instinct says it's going to be very difficult, nigh impossible, but you did also build a lightsaber, so there's that!

This channel needs more this kind of videos. Simple but still engineering

One of the best videos in a long time. You don't always have to think bigger on the projects. New Hacksmith motto, "No Mechs" like Edna's "No Capes".

Now we need a car that can only drive side to side or horizontally

I love the simplicity of this build! Takes me back to the early days of this Chanel.

I love all the videos you guys produce, awesome content. BUT, this is probably the best cost to entertainment value you've made, I love it! Does this make up for the 6-legged walker build? Haha

I love how we went from a giant Spider Mech to a spray-painted bike with the sprockets flipped, this is the kinda simple stuff I missed 👍

This looks so much fun :) I'd love to try it out!

So simple and such great content, thanks for the video, was a helluva good time watching everyone try

Even though this may not be a super "build-focused" project, still just as entertaining and educational!

Now this is the Hacksmith I like. Simple but highly entertaining. Keep it up!

The fact that they make dreams come true is dope kudos to them

let's keep this guy he is so entertaining.

Love the new form of content! It's pretty refreshing and very fluid!

8:47 love the big-brain move there, dude totally earned the $100 😂
12:30 Interesting to learn from Jennifer that gently does it is a good idea!

Really like the ending. Just trying to ride it on your own in what looks like a car park whilst singing the rocky theme to yourself. This is the kind of video I will always enjoy.
The big budget polished stuff was cool. But honestly, this back to basics, super geeky and seeing your guys passion for engineering and hacking is what I'm here for.
Keep up the great work you guys.

I think there is a way to fix the steering. The reason a bike's steering normally is self correcting is because of the angle of the front fork. Because of the angle, the point where the wheel contacts the ground is behind the steering axis. You might be able to make it steer in reverse if you angled the front fork backwards instead of forwards. That would require building a whole bike frame to accommodate that though and you still might have issues from it being rear wheel steering but it might work.

This is the kind of good video that has minimal costs. Good thinking Hacksmith team.

A little bit of drag on the front brake once you get some speed (just a tiny bit, not enough to lock it up) would probably result in increased front wheel stability.

It’d be interesting to see BMX riders attempt this! I’ve seen people ride their bikes backwards around an entire skatepark.

I'd give it a good pedal to go backwards and then attempt to coast it the rest of the way.
I think standing up and putting more weight over the front wheel also helps adjust your balance point.

Not sure what's going on at Hacksmith, but love the videos and the business! Simple project but still with a whole lotta heart!

This was an awesome idea with a great execution! thanks for making the video! A crazy idea that I thought of is to make a medieval suit of armor with some type of cool feature in it. Maybe have a sword that electrocutes whatever it touches?

Toby is the embodiment of the phrase "Work smarter not harder"

That was very fun to watch!
And I wonder what would happen, if you brought this into a skatepark with bmx riders.
They are used to going reverse (fakie) on their bikes :D

Simple yet entertaining, well done keep it up.

Cheap, simple.. and yet *so entertaining*

toby is an absolute legend

One of the big factors for it being soo hard it's the fact that you can't see where you are going, which instinctively makes you anxious.

Definitely love this more personal type of video as opposed to the more coporate feel, keep it up!

IDK what the host's name was for this video, but you did great bud. Felt natural and fun. you took a simple cheap and fun concept and made it a great piece of content. Well done hacksmith!

This guy is a great host. I hope he gets more videos in the future.

I hope James is doing better

3:06 looks so clean, props to however you managed to pull that off

Great video! First one I have watched all the way through in years. More like this please!

Great video, loved it! ...but as a former bike mechanic I just gotta say that the rattlecan paintjob and sticker bombing just makes it look so incredibly stolen lmaooo. Keep up the great work over there y'all! Still loving every video.

Love how it went from "Giant Spider Mech That Could Have Made Us go Bankrupt" to "hehe backwards bike"

I’m glad more of the team is getting on camera and I hope James’s mental health is improving

1:50 the stability that the bike has going forward is because of the "caster angle". If its positive, like in a bike, it self-stabilices the wheel. If its negative, like in a shopping cart, it makes it wanna flop around.
The extreme version of this would be... The Citröen 2cv!
The strange suspension of that car has a caster angle of almost 90°!. So when its going backwards, its surprisingly easy to flip over the whole car if you're not careful!
... Don't ask me how i know ...

It was really fun to hear the crowd cheer at the end
great idea to have some smart kids try to figure it out

That's a darn good video idea lol. Simple to execute, vexing, and community engaging.

What if the handlebars somehow moved the back wheel instead of the front? Would that make it more rideable?

i have an idea similar to this for you guys to try out. a skateboard with the trucks turned 90 degrees. if anyone could manage to ride that 10M i would be thoroughly impressed.

I really like seeing a video with something not completely over engineered (although I like that too) an this channel. Idk why but gives me the same amount of joy..

I would be curious to see a BMX rider on this thing. One that can ride backwards of course.

I have my phone language set as Spanish as I'm learning the language. Wasn't expecting this video's audio to be translated to Spanish though when it started! Sounded pretty natural - is this something that Hacksmith is doing with their content now?
Anyway, as for the video, it was fascinating. Keep up the good work. Have enjoyed Hacksmith videos for years. It's great that James is getting the help he needs, but also that he's got the support of such a great team!

Great example of a HackSmith video that didn't have to be $$$ to be fun/good!

1:55 I think the main reason going backwards is harder is actually the steering wheel being in the front, not the tilted steering tube.

It isn't just a balance thing. If you push a shopping cart backwards and let go it will try to turn itself around. The back (swivel) wheels swing a tiny bit to one side, and this angles the fixed front wheels a bit, causing the front of the cart to drift away from the direction the rear wheels are headed. Positive feedback ensues and the cart reverses itself.
This would likely be easier to ride if the steering were welded in the straight position.

Another thing that would help is if you locked the hydraulics as its one more motion factor that impacts the feedback on a bike. Most hybrid bikes let you lock them out for more power and control.

I would love to see how Mike Boyd would do this. Please reach out to him!

I wonder if it would be ridable if combined with the inverted steering bike.

I would be really interested to see if any freestyle BMX riders would be able to ride it. The Fakie in BMX is just like riding backwards in that you have to compensate for the instability but unless you have a special hub you need to pedal backwards. So someone who knows how to Fakie is only half way. They would still need to convert to pedaling forward.

I love going backwards on a bike. I'd love to try this

I do hope to see someone actually riding this in the future.

I wonder if it is rideable doing a wheelie? That might correct the steering issue, but you'd need great balance

I feel like what this technically boils down to, is riding a unicycle, while also reversing a trailer.

Sometimes, it's the little things that everyone can get involved in that are just so much fun

I feel like changing to a smaller gearing would help the ridability al lot, since you're putting in less power which should make the bike more stable

You should reverse the steering on the bike as well. That would be interesting.

Just wondering if you guys ever tried riding the bike while you yourself were turned around on it, so you were facing the back wheel, reaching behind yourself to hold the handlebars. I feel like that could possibly make the bike easier to ride, though it might go against the spirit of the challenge.

I would like to see a bmxer try this, I reckon someone who has a good fakie would pick it up pretty quick, remember Matty Cranmer not only rode the backwards steering bike, but managed to do a hop barspin on it!

Hacksmith always give Fresh content, I have been watching this good stuff since 4 or 5 years ago

You guys should combine this with the smarter every day bike. Theoretically they could cancel each other out and be like riding a normal bike but it goes backwards.

Such a simple switch, but it makes the simple bike so much more difficult. Nice

I wonder if a opposite steering system would make it easier, like when you steer to the left it actually steers to the right

This combined with Destins opposite steering bike would be the thing of nightmares

I want to see this paired with the bike that steers in the opposite direction 😂

He looks and sounds a bit like if he was Tom Scott's son 😄

I wonder if combining the backwards and the reverse steering of the other video would help

Lol, that 6 legged mech really chewed your budget xD
But honestly, low budget projects like this are equally cool 😎

I’ve seen you guys build things like lightsabers and Marvel weapons, which is pretty cool. I would love to see if you guys could make real working B1 Battle Droids… or just 1 B1 Battle Droid. That’d be really cool!!