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Riderless bike graphic Minute Physics Wren Weichman.pngVideo: how do bikes stay up?
"Perhaps more incredible than humans riding bicycles is the fact that bicycles can ride themselves".
Once set in motion, a bike can stay upright and, if knocked from one side, will steer itself so the wheel once again ends up under the centre of mass, allowing it to continue in the new direction.
But how does it happen?
As this illuminating video, by Minute Physics, explains, with a lone bicycle eerily heading off across a field by itself, it's down to three main mechanisms, which are all related to the bike's ability to steer and right itself, given enough momentum.
Although this helps explain the mechanics behind Bradley Wiggins' self parking bike, the exact combinations of variables which work to make the bicycle stay upright on its own still aren't known to science, leaving a tantalising degree of mystery. Enjoy!
Laura Laker is a freelance journalist with more than a decade’s experience covering cycling, walking and wheeling (and other means of transport). Beginning her career with road.cc, Laura has also written for national and specialist titles of all stripes. One part of the popular Streets Ahead podcast, she sometimes appears as a talking head on TV and radio, and in real life at conferences and festivals. She is also the author of Potholes and Pavements: a Bumpy Ride on Britain’s National Cycle Network.
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- Steve K 3 sec ago
Dame Laura Kenny is going to be one of the Today programmes guest editors over Christmas. https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2024/today-programme...
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That made me think of that "Hot Fuzz" comedy movie... so many truths in it.
- Rendel Harris 2 hours 42 min ago
Good to see a V-brake option available for all those people who ride Cosmic Elites with V-brakes...seriously, you must know really that the answer...
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Get thyself over to Buildhub - a community owned forum where I am on the moderation team ("Ferdinand") which is about self-build and renovation....
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Ahem, the recommended lockring is just a common through-axle specific lockring, so nothing Miche specific there, and the required tool for it is an...
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This may well be the case although Im unaware of the brands popularity on their home turf. I used to see them being advertised more in the UK...
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Arguably sticking it in a bank account is bad....
- Sredlums 15 hours 2 min ago
I'd counter that those brakes were in fact so inadequate that they eventually developed a whole new type of bicycle that was actually suited for it...
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Here is an article on the same subject from Physics Today 1970
http://www.phys.lsu.edu/faculty/gonzalez/Teaching/Phys7221/vol59no9p51_5...
who would have thunk?
good stuff
So, if I want to make my bike less twitchy I need to tie a bag of sugar to the front of the front rack (that it doesn't have), is that right?