When the Wheels Come Off

Hmmmmm? photo: @fat cyclist

This is perhaps painfully obvious to everyone but me and if so, sorry I’ve yet again wasted your time. The other day, after falling off another floating board in the ocean I had to admit my balance might suck. And my coordination too or I might have been good enough at baseball to actually like it and play it. Nope, ball sports are right out. What I want to celebrate is the fact that our bikes have two magic gyroscopes spinning underneath us. You want to sit up at 40 kph, casually reach behind and tuck your gilet under your jersey? Be my guest but you can only do that because of the gyroscopes, not your awesome balance. If good balance was required to ride bicycles every prat and his brother wouldn’t be chatting on their iphone while zipping down the lane.

Descending at great speed is so damn much fun because the bike is rock solid when hauling such mighty ass, until it isn’t and that is is pilot error, not the fault of your dualing gyroscopes. To quote one of Maine’s greatest exports, Yvon Chouinard, “speed is safety”. He was talking about mountaineering and the need quickly get across exposed couloirs to avoid potential rockfall or avalanche but it’s also true for cycling, to a point. OK, he could have said speed is stability if he was more of a cyclist.

Does this mean we shouldn’t own deep section carbone wheels, with their lighter rotating mass providing less momentum? No, folly my friends, the deep section wheels are spinning faster because you are going faster due to the aero-awesomeness of those wheels. A year into my tubular tire/50 mm Cancellara carbone wheels and I’m more chuffed than ever about them. Unless it’s raining heavily and I’m descending then, not as chuffed. But I digress, that is another lecture.

So far so good. What the hell is absent minded professor talking about? All this spin angle momentum and torque should have us riding in circles not going in straight lines. That is your weekend homework. Test on Monday. Buon weekend.

Gianni

Gianni has left the building.

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View Comments

Pero says:

May 22 2016 at 12:48 am
To self-balance, a bicycle needs to have a tendency to steer into the lean by itself. There are three factors that make standard modern bikes do this:
- The aforementioned gyroscopic effect.
- The aforementioned trail.
- The fact that the steering system's center of mass is in front of the steering axis, so that when the bike is leaning it tends to fall lower than the steering axis and thus turn the wheel into the lean. This is somewhat similar to how trail works, but it is an independent factor.
Any one of these factors can be enough to make a bike self-balance, as long as there are no other factors opposing it. Luckily, modern bikes have all three working in unison (barring some wacky front end setups).
Pero says:

May 22 2016 at 12:55 am

Some more about the formal discovery of that third factor: http://www.cornell.edu/video/andy-ruina-explains-how-bicycles-balance-themselves
sthilzy says:

May 22 2016 at 1:30 am

Ghostie your #1 and see how good the gyroscopic effect is!
sthilzy says:

May 22 2016 at 1:31 am

you can only do that because of the gyroscopes, not your awesome balance

Huh?
Teocalli says:

May 22 2016 at 2:28 am

Then there is this.....
Gianni says:

May 22 2016 at 12:36 pm

@sthilzy

you can only do that because of the gyroscopes, not your awesome balance

Huh?

OK already, I admit I am totally wrong here. That robot is fab. Chapeau to that engineer.
Gianni says:

May 22 2016 at 12:38 pm

@Teocalli

I remember an article many years ago about experimental bikes with either no trail or negative trail and the bikes are basically unrideable. Too bad I didn't remember that before I wrote this dog's ass article in the first place.
Teocalli says:

May 22 2016 at 1:28 pm

@Gianni

I have often thought that Rule #5 and #9 also apply to writing articles!

I have also considered carefully the scientific evidence, theories and proofs in all of this thread vs your original postulation and come to the considered opinion that based on scientific fact, you balance is indeed, crap.
cognition says:

May 23 2016 at 12:13 am

@Gianni

Ah, but as Frank would say -- gyroscopes make for a better story, and thus have an element of truth in them.
ErikdR says:

May 23 2016 at 2:28 am

@cognition

@Gianni

Ah, but as Frank would say — gyroscopes make for a better story, and thus have an element of truth in them.

Heheh... Indeed... And Tim Krabbé just might second that notion. Something along the lines of: "Gyroscopes are cool: they represent the essence of all that is mysterious and beautiful about bicycles. Those physics data are inaccurate..." or words to that effect