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[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 79 points 10 months 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 72 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months 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.

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[-] salvaria 19 points 10 months ago

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

[-] Ioughttamow@fedia.io 8 points 10 months ago

My next DnD character will be a bicyclist

[-] Iheartcheese@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago
[-] TheBat@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago
[-] Iheartcheese@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

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[-] Creat@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 10 months ago

The gyroscopic effect of slowly spinning, light bicycle wheels is negligible compared to the weight of the bike and it's rider. If it was what keeps you upright, riding a tiny scooter-thing with skateboard/inliner wheels would be impossible. I mean those without motor, pedals, where you push yourself forward with one foot on the ground), often for kids.

What actually keeps you upright isn't a physical effect, but just training your brain to instinctually keep you upright. While you're moving, turning the handlebar effectively moves the bike below you left and right. So if you start tilting to the right, you turn right (slightly) so the bike/scooter is moving below you to compensate. That's why learning to ride anything that is balancing on 2 wheels takes a relatively long time, but only once. Then your brain knows what to do, and it just works without thinking about it.

[-] gnu@lemmy.zip 4 points 10 months ago

The design of the front forks also assists with stability - having some rake and trail means the front wheel has a tendency to self centre (particularly at speed).

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[-] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 56 points 10 months 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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[-] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 43 points 10 months ago

It's the central pedal force

[-] affiliate@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

my bike doesn’t have a central pedal. how does it stay up right?

[-] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 months ago
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[-] Aceticon@lemmy.world 29 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months 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 31 points 10 months 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 21 points 10 months 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 10 months ago

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

[-] Malfeasant@lemm.ee 7 points 10 months 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)

[-] limelight79@lemm.ee 28 points 10 months 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.

[-] SanderTuit@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

Yeah, I can relate to this...

[-] grandkaiser@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago
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[-] EtherWhack@lemmy.world 22 points 10 months ago

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

Yes there are demonstrations on YouTube of bikes just wanting to remain upright. You can role it down a hill and it will self correct. Something to do with physics but I forget the terms.

[-] 0ops@lemm.ee 22 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months 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 10 months 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 10 months 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 4 points 10 months 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.

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[-] kivulallo@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

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

[-] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago

Wait til anon hears about launch loops or space elevators

[-] H1jAcK@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago

How long does it take to go up the space elevator?

[-] Cort@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

What floor are you getting off at?

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[-] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 9 points 10 months 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.

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[-] USNWoodwork@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

What's really hard is getting a 5 year old to understand this before you run out of energy from trying to hold their seat and run at the same time.

[-] superkret@feddit.org 11 points 10 months ago

That's how I learned it. My dad got tired, let go and stopped.
I noticed it was suddenly much easier to pedal, so I turned around to see him standing 30ft behind me, then I crashed.

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[-] Curufeanor@sh.itjust.works 8 points 10 months ago

Dynamic stability

[-] magnetosphere@fedia.io 7 points 10 months ago

If you’ve forgotten high school physics (like me), this is a legitimately strange phenomenon.

[-] xpinchx@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

Think of this as you inch forward until the green light with a motorcycle behind you. Just stop. Riding at 2 mph is misery.

[-] dodgy_bagel 7 points 10 months ago

Everyone is wrong. It's the encabulation effect.

[-] ngwoo@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

Modern bicycles include an isotropic harmonization manifold to achieve the same thing without an encabulator.

[-] dodgy_bagel 3 points 10 months ago

How do they account for side fumbling?

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[-] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Momentum + Gyroscopic effect

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this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
674 points (100.0% liked)

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