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[-] 0ops@lemm.ee 20 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I'm surprised how much I'm seeing gyro brought up in these comments. It's a factor, but it's practically negligible. It's all in the steering. Start to tip right, and you'll subconsciously steer slightly to the right to correct your balance. Try to ride as slow as you can and you'll find yourself doing these corrections much more frantically and dramatically. The reason for that is because it takes longer for the wheel to roll under your center gravity and "catch" you when you're going slowly so you have to turn in quicker to maintain balance.

Notice that on almost every bike you see, the front axle on the bike is slightly ahead of the neck's axis of rotation. That offset does two things: 1. It stabilizes the steering so that the bike will tend to steer straight and 2. (more important to my point) It makes the balance-correcting effect of steering more immediate and dramatic, making it much easier to ride at slower speeds.

As a counter argument showing why gyro is barely a factor, these exist: image of a ski bike

Edit: if you're not seeing the image like I'm not, Google "ski bike".

[-] frezik@midwest.social 5 points 1 day ago

It's pretty common to bring up gyroscopes for this when people know a little bit about physics. It's all over motorcycle forums, for instance.

As you say, it doesn't work. Experiments have been done where they attach a counter rotating wheel to cancel out the gyroscopic effect, and while it's a little wonky to ride, it works fine.

IIRC, we're not 100% sure how bikes work just yet. Every time somebody comes up with a model that seems to be good, someone finds a counterexample that throws it in the bin. Even your explanation of bike trail isn't all the way there; Razer-type scooters still work without trail on the front wheel.

[-] malle_yeno@pawb.social 4 points 2 days ago

I figured it was pretty obviously the rider that's making the bike not fall over, not the bike itself.

If the bike's ability to remain upright while moving was a natural feature, then why would you ever need to learn how to ride bikes? You could just sit on it and go if that was the case.

[-] frezik@midwest.social 3 points 1 day ago

It works on its own. If you push your bike along with a good run and then let go, it'll stay upright until it slows down too much.

Learning to ride a bike is mostly about being confident enough to let the bike work itself out. It gets more stable as it goes faster, but it's natural to be afraid to go faster when it already feels unstable at low speed. Then there's a little bit to learn about countersteering, but most people figure that out without being told it's even a thing.

[-] boonhet@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah. Case in point: Ghost riders in Motorcycle racing.

Motorcycles also tend to fall down when stationary, yet stay upright without the rider at speed.

Also makes me wonder if just the bike crossing the finish line would be enough to win if you fell off in first place just before the line.

[-] absentbird@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Then why does going faster also make it easier to balance on something without steering, like a snowboard?

My assumption is that when you're standing still relative to the ground you can fall in many directions, but once you start moving momentum limits the directions you can fall to the ones in line with your motion. So the faster you're moving the fewer directions you need to worry about.

[-] 0ops@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago

Snowboards definitely have steering, you twist the board and shift your weight to manipulate how the edges contact the snow, it's just not quiet as explicit as a bikes front wheel. But whether it's a bike, a board, or literally any moving thing on land, the steering happens because you applied a lateral force to the ground and an equal and opposite force was applied back to you.

The snowboard uses different methods of applying that force, but other than that it's the same concept as described in my first comment: Greater speed allows more subtle corrections to take effect more quickly.

Now the snowboard does have a wider contact area with the ground, but that really only helps you on flat ground at very low speed, or standstill. Advanced boarders will carve transitioning from edge to edge most of the time.

[-] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Momentum + Gyroscopic effect

[-] psud@aussie.zone 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Steering keeps you upright in the same way a broom handle balanced on your hand is kept up by moving you hand around

Gyroscopic effects are negligable

[-] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

There is a word for what you're describing, it's called "momentum".

More specifically, the force vectors for gravity and forward motion combine angles in a ratio of their magnitude and the bike becomes less likely to topple than go forward (in the assumption the horizontal force is the greater of the two values), or in other words as long as it has forward momentum.

[-] EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 day ago

how many licks does it take to get a bike to balance its self? The world will never know!

[-] Reddfugee42@lemmy.world 70 points 3 days ago

Brah just discovered conservation of angular momentum

[-] Malfeasant@lemm.ee 15 points 2 days ago

It's not that. Gyroscopic action exists of course, but it's fairly weak against the weight of your body. Balancing a bicycle is just like balancing an umbrella on your finger, except you can easily move your finger any direction you need. To move the bicycle sideways, you need to already be moving forward.

[-] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 6 points 2 days ago

Track stands! Not a contradiction to your statement at all though: you need to be moving just ever so slightly.

With a fixie it's easy, because you can pedal forwards and backwards in tiny amounts. With a freewheel, it's trickier but you get the hang of it with practice. Ideally you'll have an incline, so you pedal forward to go forward, and ease up to slide back. After some practice I can use the raised reflective paint from e.g. crosswalks as the "incline." This miniscule motion is enough to balance


and like you said, it ain't the angular momentum that does it.

[-] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

~~it really is that though, have you not done the rotating wheel experiment? it is fucking hard to tilt the axis of a wheel rotating at a speed which is comparable to biking speed.~~ come to think of it maybe not:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oZAc5t2lkvo

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[-] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 10 points 2 days ago

I don’t get it when people (usually chavs) can just sit back with their hands in their pockets - when I try it my handlebars twist out to one side instantly.

[-] psud@aussie.zone 1 points 1 day ago

Most bikes are stable and a cyclist can weight shift to turn gently without touching the handlebars

Mine is a recumbent that steers with long handlebars. The handlebars prevent the bike from balancing itself.

Yours might have barely stable geometry, or badly placed weight on the handlebars

[-] NegativeLookBehind@lemmy.world 90 points 3 days ago

Fuckin magnets

How do they work?

[-] hOrni@lemmy.world 25 points 3 days ago

Tide comes in, tide comes out, You can't explain that.

[-] Comment105@lemm.ee 16 points 3 days ago

The dumber a civilization is, the more sense God makes.

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[-] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 58 points 3 days ago

first, and less importantly, your wheels are gyroscopes

second, and much more importantly, at speed you use your steering to compensate for imbalance. You lean a little right? slight steering to the right compensates. When standing still, steering is no longer an option (duh)

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[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 72 points 3 days ago

Gyroscope effect. You ever do the experiment where you spin a bike tire really fast and then try to tilt it? Shit's nuts.

[-] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 76 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

That only causes part of the effect, most of it is the bike's steering countering the momentum of your fall.

You wouldn't be able to balance on a bike with just the wheel spinning, you're too heavy. That is why bikes on those indoor rollers allow the bike to move left and right a bit.

[-] SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world 23 points 3 days ago

So biking is just falling with style?

[-] Rednax@lemmy.world 26 points 3 days ago

Just like orbiting something. Satellites are constantly just falling back to earth, but with enough grace to always miss earth. I bet satellites would be great cyclists!

[-] SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world 20 points 3 days ago

There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. … Clearly, it is this second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties.

[-] absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz 7 points 2 days ago

So is walking

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[-] salvaria@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 3 days ago

Hmmm... Both things involve bicycles... Maybe they're just magic?

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[-] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 47 points 3 days ago

It's the central pedal force

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[-] limelight79@lemm.ee 28 points 3 days ago

Can confirm. Last week, I got home from a ride, stopped in front of the garage, couldn't unclip, and promptly fell over. It turned out one of the bolts fell out from the cleat during the ride, so the cleat just rotated, instead of unclipping. D'oh. Fortunately, I mostly landed in grass, though I did scrape my ankle a bit.

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[-] cordlesslamp@lemmy.today 22 points 3 days ago

But pedaling on a treadmill make you fall over.

What the hell?

[-] julietOscarEcho@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 days ago

They're called rollers, and they're pretty easy to ride on.

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[-] Aceticon@lemmy.world 26 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Same principle as a gyroscope: a turning wheel will tend to stay perpendicular or parallel to the direction of the gravity vector because if it starts tilting away from such orientation there's a force that pushes it back.

Also works better with bigger wheels (if I remember it correctly the effect is related to spinning momentum).

I was pretty surprised when learning Physics and they show us how to derive the formula for that (which I totally forgot since that was over 3 decades ago).

Edit: Actually the gyroscopic effetc is just a part of it. See this article

[-] anti_antidote@lemmy.zip 29 points 3 days ago

Actually, it's the bike's geometry rather than a gyroscopic effect. Try rolling a bike backwards rather than forward - it'll topple quickly

[-] Aceticon@lemmy.world 22 points 3 days ago

Yeah, you're mostly right: Why bycicles stay upright.

There's some gyroscopic effect, but per that article it's not the main reason.

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[-] PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee 6 points 2 days ago

Freestyle BMX riders go in reverse all the time and they don't fall over.

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[-] Malfeasant@lemm.ee 7 points 2 days ago

Gyroscopic effect is not even significant. Lock your steering and you will fall over no matter how fast your wheels are spinning. (Which can happen with a badly pitted headset)

[-] EtherWhack@lemmy.world 24 points 3 days ago

Having the pivot point (steering) for the front wheel behind it's axle helps

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[-] kivulallo@lemmy.world 17 points 3 days ago

A Veritasium video about the topic, if someone is actually interested: https://youtu.be/9cNmUNHSBac

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this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
660 points (98.2% liked)

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