“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”

– Frederick Douglass, an African-American social reformer, abolitionist and statesman

Riding a bike is a skill we learn as kids and generally sticks around for a lifetime. But American missile flight-test engineer Destin Sandlin was presented with a bike no one, not even he, could ride. Sandlin works at the Red Stone Arsenal, adjacent to Huntsville in Madison Country, Alabama. He is the host and creator of Smarter Every Day’s popular video blog.

One day a welder at the Arsenal presented Sandlin with a challenge: to ride a “backwards” bicycle he had created. It was an ordinary bicycle with one exception: the wheel went to the right when you turned the handlebar to the left. When you turn it to...

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