This summer, I served as the camp speaker for four week-long sessions at Young Life’s Saranac Village. Each week, I spoke to about 350 teenagers about life: what we were made for, and about the God that loves each of us. I had an idea to use a reverse-steering bike as an illustration for one of my talks. A reverse-steering bike is a bike where if you turn the handlebars one way, the front wheel turns in the opposite direction. This is accomplished by adding a gear mechanism at the stem of the handlebars. The result is a bike that is nearly impossible to ride. Every instinct that you would have regarding turning and balancing the bike is exactly wrong. I knew it was a great idea, but had no idea how to build it. I presented the project to my friend Bill Batkay, and he assured me that the folks at Miller Mechanical could build it for me. About a month later, I picked up the bike, and took it to camp with me. During free time at camp, I would bring out the bike for kids to try. Every kid who saw it wanted to try it, and most thought they would be able to ride it. Some kids came with theories about how they would make it work–some kids tried crossing their grip, some tried closing their eyes, and some thought that all they needed was enough speed. Every kid discovered that it was a lot more difficult than they thought at first, and that their instincts were all backwards. That night, I would bring the bike out on stage, and use it to illustrate the idea I wanted to talk about. I wanted kids to think about the idea that life, like the bike, can look “easy to ride”, and lots of people have theories about how to make it work. Often, we discover that our instincts about life are exactly the opposite of what actually makes it work. For example, life really works better when we love people and use things, but in our brokenness, we tend to love things and use people. These backwards instincts don’t get us the results we were hoping for, and we become disoriented, confused, and sometimes even hurt. Each week, campers and leaders reported back that the bike illustration was very helpful and “sticky” for them and their kids. Thanks to Miller Mechanical for helping me connect with the hearts of so many kids this summer!
The following is a video of campers trying to succeed in riding the “reverse-steering bike”.
Feel free to cut and past video for viewing.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B26R7V9fR_0US0NZX213YlVQQW8/view?pref=2&pli=1
