# Mythbusters 2015 Season **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 11, 2015, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythbusters-2015-season/709579 "2015-01-11T23:41:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythbusters-2015-season/709579/81 "2015-02-20T19:20:07Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Because _the laws of physics sez you cant_. That crazy Newton guy. That car had a engine that would generate just so much forward motion when in reverse- which was not fast enuf to be stable. How fast do you [need to go](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrJvv_L8WBw) [to stabilize a bike](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG-LV8xHA4M), you know, according to physics? ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythbusters-2015-season/709579/82 "2015-02-20T19:50:24Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > It’s just the factual, unskewed, unbiased result of _that_ test. And anyone who doesn’t accept the results is perfectly free to review the methodology and perform their own attempt at replication. That is how science is and is meant to work. No one study is authoritative, nor should anyone believe that it is so, nor should anyone believe that the author intended it to be so. I guess this makes sense. I guess my issue is their attitude of “It’s busted, therefore that video is fake” or “It’s busted and cannot possibly be done”. ISTM that at least some of these should be 'Busted (or plausible), because we couldn’t replicate the results without using high explosives, but that’s not to say it didn’t actually happen the way they claimed it happen". Since it’s a semi-educational show, I was going to suggest that maybe they tell their viewers that they try replicating some of the myths themselves if they disagree with the results, but I guess you can’t have the unwashed masses blowing up cement trucks or shooting cannonballs at, well, anything. But maybe what you said is something they should say more often so what I said isn’t something more people said. Maybe they could say 'hey, these are the results WE got and that’s why WE busted it. If you don’t like the result, head to our website tell us why and maybe we’ll revisit it in the future. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythbusters-2015-season/709579/83 "2015-02-20T19:53:43Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > How fast do you [need to go](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrJvv_L8WBw) [to stabilize a bike](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG-LV8xHA4M), you know, according to physics? That’s\* those \*bikes, with professional experts- in a _competition_. You saw the vid put out by the guy who supposedly actually did it, right? He couldnt stabilize his vehicle. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythbusters-2015-season/709579/84 "2015-02-20T21:13:37Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > That’s\* those \*bikes, with professional experts- in a _competition_. You saw the vid put out by the guy who supposedly actually did it, right? He couldnt stabilize his vehicle. But the laws of physics apply to everyone. They don’t disappear during motorcycle rodeos. You were pretty clear that he was going too slow to stabilize the bike because physics, I gave you a video of people going considerably slower than him and not falling. Anyways, what we saw is a few seconds of a video where he was moving his bike, no where, in that video, did anyone claim that he couldn’t (or could) ride it. Maybe that was the top speed, maybe he can’t get his feet off the ground\* or maybe it was just scooting it forward a few feet. I don’t take my feet off the ground when I move my bike from the driveway to the garage but either way you’re extrapolating an awful lot just from that video. In fact that’s literally exactly my problem. You just watched a few seconds of him riding with his feet on the ground and decided he therefore can not stabilize the bike. That’s like, what, taking a cup of water from the ocean and declaring that whales don’t exist. Your research isn’t very exhaustive. If I shoot a video of my brother riding at a few miles an hour with his feet dragging on the ground on my Honda would that mean he can’t ride it…you’d have the same evidence, you should jump to the same conclusion, correct? \*Even if he couldn’t get his feet off the ground, it might still be faster to go 20 miles like that than walk it, I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythbusters-2015-season/709579/85 "2015-02-21T16:10:03Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Here’s a [youtube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiuHxf565kw). I have no idea if it’s him or not and it’s only a 30 foot or so ride and at a few mph, but it’s better than Jaime or Adam did. > FYI, after the first clip, it’s gets really strange, might want to turn it off if you’re at work. That is a pretty version of the bike, certainly a lot better built and more sensibly put together than either arrangement Jamie and Adam came up with. Sure looks like it balances better. > [@](#): > > Did they actually say “Can an average driver do it”? I mean, if that was the case, it was a waste of an episode. Have them each try it a few times and be done, no point in spending 12 hours with a professional drifter. Okay, I just rewatched the segment. The original statement by Jamie was that it was faster and easier to parallel park by sliding. The result was “Plausible”, because the expert driver did it, but Adam couldn’t pull it off trying dozens of times. He got one time with the small white car in the cone marked slot that was oversized, but couldn’t get the white car into the slot between other cars, and couldn’t pull off the limo park himself. It can be done, but not everyone can do it, even with lots of practice. “Plausible” sounds correct. > [@Joey\_P](#): > > I really thought this one deserved a “plausible, with some more tinkering it might have worked”. “Busted, totally busted” seemed way overboard. I have a feeling this one will show up in one of their redo episodes. You may be right on that. > [@Joey\_P](#): > > Anyways, what we saw is a few seconds of a video where he was moving his bike, no where, in that video, did anyone claim that he couldn’t (or could) ride it. Maybe that was the top speed, maybe he can’t get his feet off the ground\* or maybe it was just scooting it forward a few feet. I don’t take my feet off the ground when I move my bike from the driveway to the garage but either way you’re extrapolating an awful lot just from that video. In fact that’s literally exactly my problem. You just watched a few seconds of him riding with his feet on the ground and decided he therefore can not stabilize the bike. That’s like, what, taking a cup of water from the ocean and declaring that whales don’t exist. Your research isn’t very exhaustive. Agreed. One of my former coworkers rides a motorcycle, and one afternoon our customer (who is his friend) wanted to try it out. He spent several minutes rolling around at a crawl, not going more than 100 feet in any one direction, with his feet down for stabilization. Because he didn’t want to try driving faster. That hardly proves anything about the motorcycle’s stability. > [@](#): > > \*Even if he couldn’t get his feet off the ground, it might still be faster to go 20 miles like that than walk it, I don’t know. Or at least it might be easier, even if not faster. Riding 20 miles at a slow crawl is still easier than walking 20 miles. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2015, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythbusters-2015-season/709579/86 "2015-02-21T17:48:41Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > Or at least it might be easier, even if not faster. Riding 20 miles at a slow crawl is still easier than walking 20 miles. YMMV. I was careful with that statement. That in and of itself would be something to test. Riding an unstable bike at a low speed or riding a stable bike on uneven ground at low speed may be much harder than walking the same distance once you get further than a few miles. It takes a lot of effort to keep a bike upright when you’re not going anywhere. The anecdote I always remember (don’t remember if I read it here or heard it IRL) is of a rider that said his wife would wait until they came to a stop light to dig around in her purse, grab stuff out of her pockets, fix her her etc. He finally told her that all that moving around is much easier if she does it when they’re moving rather then when he’s trying to keep the bike up with his legs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythbusters-2015-season/709579.md?page=4)