why do we lose balance in a bike when at a standstill?

rody084

ive been wondering...

why is it so much easier to maintain our balance when the bike is moving?

is it something of centripital (sp?) force, just like when you sit on a spinable chair and spin a bike wheel and it turns you in circles. (does the force of the spinning force you downward?)

DarkEternal

not sure if this is exactly right, but conservation of angular momentum is one reason. when the wheels are up and spinning, they act as gyroscopes. their angular momentum vectors point to the left when you go forward. tilting the bike would change the angle of this vector and would require a torque to be exerted on the system. so in general, the wheels will resist changes in their angular momentum when they are spinning, but will not when they are not spinning - just like a gyroscope.

Artman

I originally just said, "Partially angular momentum, partially rotational inertia." Oops, then I reread the question. You lose your angular momentum, the main thing that helps you stay upright at all after you stop is your rotational inertia.

krab

The main reason is that when you are moving, steering allows you to move your point of support around. In particular, you need to keep the support vertically in line with your centre of gravity. When you are stopped, you can no longer do this. It's like standing on one foot. If you are not allowed to hop, and you start falling sideways, you cannot recover. But if you can hop to relocate the foot with respect to the c.of.g, you will recover balance.

Janitor

I remember thinking about this same issue waaaaaaay back in the days when I had a bicycle. I came to the same conclusion as krab. I could in those days keep my feet off the ground at a very low speed on my bicycle, albeit with a lot of jerky movements of the handlebars. I decided that the gyroscopic action at such a low speed was so slight as to be negligible, compared to the "moving of your point of support" as krab puts it. At high speeds, I don't doubt that gyroscopic action is important, and very subtle movements of the handlebar suffice at high speed.

Artman

Found a good description of the physics of bicycle riding here:

Bike Physics

In this article, he atributes balance to centripital force.

HallsofIvy

One nice thing about a bicycle is that when the bicycle leans to the right, for example, the "gyroscopic" force makes the front wheel turn to the right, thus "catching" the lean. That's why you can ride "no hands".

By the way, the Olympic Games are coming up. Be sure you watch the bike "sprints". I put "sprints" in quotes because sprinting is the last thing they do! The effect of drafting is so great that each rider wants to force the other to lead. They spend an enormous amount of time almost motionless! But of course, they can't can't come to a complete stop because then they couldn't remain upright. (They can "rock" back and forth!)

BobG

DarkEternal hits the primary reason. Yes, you can keep a very slow moving bicycle upright, but it doesn't have any real stability unless the tires are moving fast enough to generate some gyroscopic ability.

Take the tire off of your bicycle, fashion a handle that sticks out from the hubs on your bicycle tire, and spin the tire as fast as you can. Now turn the tire in different directions. You can feel the effect of the tire's angular momentum. In fact, if you sit on a rotating stool, have someone hand you a rotating bicycle tire, lift your feet, and turn the tire over, you'll start spinning the opposite direction of the tire's new direction. You've formed a system including you and the tire, and between you, the angular momentum will attempt to stay constant (minus the affect of friction, etc). You can control the rate you're spinning by changing the angle of the tire, returning the tire to it's original orientation to bring yourself to a complete stop.

edtman

What a great post. I was thinking of this exact question while mountain biking today...

krab

The gyroscopic effect is important; it allows one to affect a bike's lean by applying steering force. But it is not the effect that explains why it is possible to balance while moving and practically impossible when stationary. There are in fact 3 phases: 1. When stationary, it is hard to balance; 2. When moving too slowly for gyro effects to matter (below a fast walking pace), you tend to meander around while balancing; 3. When moving above a walking pace, it's easy to balance with hardly any meander, one can also ride with no hands.

Experiments have been done where the gyro effect is cancelled by a counter-rotating wheel. It is still possible to ride such a bike.

Albert's your uncle

Just seen this post and it reminded me of an experiment where a bicycle was pushed down a slope without a rider (so no moving the handlebars to regain balance). Once the bicycle was pushed to a slow running speed, it was let go to run down the hill on its own. It accelerated at first due to the hill's slope and the bicycle carried on going until it reached a flat piece of ground and slowed down. It was only when it had slowed to a walking pace that the bicycle fell over.

So, the balance of a bicycle when being ridden is the same as a bicycle travelling at speed without a rider. This brings doubt to Krab's theory of moving the handlbars to get the "moving of your point of support". The bicycle somehow manages this on its own. So it must be more to do with the gyroscopic effect caused by the motion of the wheels.

Rogerio

The gyroscopic effect is the unique reason for the balance differences between a stationary bike and a moving bike.
By the way, in a high speed, it is enough just to tilt the bike to change the movement direction. How could explain this? In fact, this is the precession started by the perturbation introduced by your tilt.

GOD__AM

As far as I know the bike turns because of camber thrust. The distance around the tire at it's center and closer to the edges is different. When the tire is leaned the inside of the contact patch doesnt have as far to travel so the tire turns.

Also what you said about "catching" the lean works slightly different than that. When the bike is traveling in a straight line to get it to lean to the left you have to actually turn the bars to the right. This causes the bike to start to fall to the left because the front tire is going ever so slightly to the right, and the back tire and the weight of the bike are still wanting to go straight. The result is the bike leans to the left and camber thrust causes it to turn that way. The "catching" the lean comes into play when we decrease pressure on the bars enough to stop leaning.

I don't think the gyroscopic force of the wheels has much if anything to do with how the bike turns at all unless you happen to be doing a wheelie. A bike being ridden is basically always in a controlled fall. Falling to either the right or left. The more foward speed it has the less likely it will fall over. You can see this at motorcycle races all the time. Bikes without riders (meaning the rider fell off) many times continue on riding down the road until it slows enough to fall to one side or the other.

Rogerio

Lets consider making turns just by leaning the bike (whithout moving the bars).

Well, with a little math and according to your thinking, the same difference between the internal and external paths, but using a smaller wheel, would imply in a smaller curvature radius.

So, if it was true, at the same leaning, a bike with a smaller wheel (a smaller radius but the same tire cross section) would perform better turns.

But, it seems to be exactly the opposite, which just reinforces the importance played by the gyroscopic effect mentioned before.

GOD__AM

Actually smaller front wheels were used for a few years on some sport bikes and they did indeed turn quicker. They used a 18 inch wheel on the rear and a 16 on the front. So when you say it seem exactally the opposite I miss your reasoning.

Other things like wheel base, rake angle, and amount of trail also play a big part in how fast a bike turns. The act of turning is solely accomplished by camber thrust as I mentioned above. Don't believe it? Take a tire and roll it, when it gets slow enough it will start to lean then turn in a circle that tightens the more it leans. I'm sure we have all seen this.

The fact that you can trurn a bike at all without turning the bars should help you see that gyroscopic effect has nothing to do with it. Why dont you weld your stearing straight and then push your bike very slowly as you lean it. Now you will see it turns without any gyroscopic effect.

HungryChemist

I have another idea that may contribute to this post. (maybe not). When a person is sitting on the bike (compare to when bike is rolling without a person) due to the weight of the person the bike will be pushed down hard on the ground making the surface area of tire in contact with ground larger, therefore making it more stationary. And when the wheel of the bike is rolling hard on the ground, a certain part of tire is in collision with the ground that is no perfectly flat, faster the speeds of the bike, harder it will collide with the ground making again making the surface area of tire in contact with ground larger. After all said, I am not really sure about what I said. Can someone criticize or pick up where I left off?

krab

That's strange, first you present data that is completely consistent with what I said in my post, then you say my post is wrong. Maybe you should read it again. "Bicycle manages stability on its own" when going fast enough; just as I said one can ride with no hands (I called it phase 3). Bicycle fell over when speed dropped below walking pace; just as I said (called it phase 2)

You then cannot explain why it is possible to balance a bike at such a slow speed that gyro effects are negligible (what I called phase 2).

This is an interesting claim. How does it scale with tire width? I ride both a motorcycle and a bicycle, and the difference in tire width is larger than a factor of 4! Yet they steer pretty much the same, or IOW I've always attributed the difference to the difference in mass; mass of spinning tire and also moment of inertia about steering axis.