UKC

The unsteerable bicycle

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 Martin W 19 May 2018
In reply to DaveHK:

Brilliant!  Many thanks for posting that.

One of the videos linked from it on YouTube is also worth a look:

youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0&

I was aware of "unrideable" bikes with the steering action reversed, but this guy goes the whole way: teaching himself how to ride one, then seeing how long it takes him to learn to ride a normal bike again - in front of an audience, an Amsterdam.

In reply to DaveHK:

I wonder if more dynamic body movement might allow the brike to be steered (as per racing motorbikes, MTBs, etc).

Post edited at 15:16
 Martin W 21 May 2018
In reply to captain paranoia:

I would doubt it.  Such "body english" still relies on gravity to provide the counter-force to the forces set up by the bicycle turning.  When you hang off a motorcycle in a turn you balance your bodyweight, which is trying to pull the bike over, with the forces on the bike (and you) arising from its curved path.  No gravity = no bodyweight to counteract the turning forces = the bike will topple towards the outside of the turn (same as if you fail to lean enough).

 krikoman 21 May 2018
In reply to DaveHK:

Nice one.

It might have been interesting for the bloke in the second video to have tried swapping back to the backwards bike and seeing if he could ride that

 ablackett 21 May 2018
In reply to Martin W:

Those backwards bikes have always reminded me of a 2 wheel unicycle I tried to ride once, essentially two wheels stacked on top of each other, you peddle the top when forwards and the bottom wheel (on the ground) gos backwards. I chapel I knew learned how to ride one in a similar time frame to the bloke in the video but if he thought about what he was doing fell off immediately. I think he could switch back into normal unicycling fairly easily.


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