How does a bike stay upright? A new theoretical framework - BikeRadar

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Everyone knows how a bike stays upright — the gyroscopic forces induced by the spinning wheels, and the “castor effect” created by trail. Or do they? A team of engineers says it's proven that bikes can stay upright even without these things.

While it’s been generally accepted for decades that they are the two factors keeping your bike upright, English-born engineer Jim Papadopoulos and his colleagues suggest that a bike will be stable even if these two forces aren’t present. . . .

“Our work,” says Papadopoulos, now an assistant teaching professor at the Northeastern University in Boston, “was about finding the correct equations and proving that widely accepted assertions were not precisely true. Therefore, we encourage designers to play with formerly forbidden limits like negative trail and vertical steering. This is not necessarily better, but neither should they assume it must be worse.”

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How does a bike stay upright? A new theoretical framework - BikeRadar