Note the article is reprinted from Physies Today 23(4), 1970, pp34-40, copyright 19 be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. Further, this article was scanned with permission of AIP. A definitive archival copy will be posted at www.aip.org/pt. The publisher (AIP) is not liable for any mistakes in the scan. THE STABILITY OF THE BICYCLE American Institute of Physies, This article may Tired of quantum electrodynamics, Brillouin zones, Regge poles? Try this old, unsolved problem in dynamics—how does a bike work? David E. H. Jones Atstosr rvenvone ean ride a bieyele, yet apparently no ane knows how they do it.I believe that the apparent simplicity and ease of the. trick con: ceals much unrecognized subtlety, and have spent some time and effort tr ing to discover the reasons for t bieycle’s stability. Published theory fon the topic is sketchy’ and presented mainly without experimental verifiea- tion. In my investigations I hoped to identify the stabilizing features of normal bieyeles by constructing. ab- normal ones lacking selected featur (see figure 1). ‘The failure of unridable bicycles Ted me to a care- ful consideration of steering, goomet from which with the aid of computer caleulations—I designed and —con- structed an inherently unstable bie eye, The nature of the problem Most mechanics textbooks or treatises ‘on bieyeles either ignore the matter of their stability, or teat it as faitly tive jal, The bieyele is assumed to be balanced by the action ofits rider who, if he feels the vehicle falling, steers into the direction of fall and’ so tra verses a curved trajectory of such a radius as to generate enough centri. tugal force to correct the fall. This David E. H. Jones took bachelor’s and doctor's degrees in chemistry at In Perial College, London, and has since Biternated between the industrial and academic life. Currently he is a spec ‘roscopist with ICI in England.IDABLE” BICYCLES. David fs seen here with three experimental machines, two of ih turned out to be riduble afterall, up ofthis page is URB I, extra countersotating front whee! {ess the gyroscopic theories eyle stability. At left is URB 11, it great stability when pushed released riderless. IV (immediately above) has its wheel mounted ahead of the usual theory is well formalised mathemati- cally by 8, Timoshenko and D. H. Young,! who derive the equation of motion of an idealized bieycle, ne alecting rotational moments, and dem- onstrate that a falling bieycle can be saved by proper steering of the front wheel. The theory explains, for ex ample, that the ridability of a bieyele depends crucially on the freedom of the front forks to swivel (if they ar locked, even dead ahead, the bieycle ‘ean not be ridden), that the faster a bieycle moves the easier it is to ride (because a smaller steering adjust- ‘ment is needed to create the contrif- tugal correetion) and that it ean not be Dalanced when stationary. Nevertheless this theory can not be true, or at least it can not be the whole truth, You experience a powerful sense, when riding a bieycle fast, that it is inherently stable and could not fall over even if you wanted it to, Also a bicyele pushed and released riderless will stay up on its own, traveling in a long curve and finally collapsing after about 20 seconds, compared to the 2 see it would take if static, Clearly the machine has a large measure of self-stability Tho next level of sophistication in current bieyele-stability theory in- vokes the gyroscopic action of the front wheel. If the bike tills, the front wheel processes about the stecr- ing axis and steers it in a curve that, as before, counteracts the tilt. The appeal of this theory is that its action is perfectly exemplified by a rolling hhoop, which indeed ean run stably for just this reason. A bicycle is thus as sumed to be merely a hoop with a trailer Tho lightness of the front wheel distresses some theorists, who feel th the precession forces are inadequate to stabilize « heavily laden hieyele.2 K. 1. T, Richardson* allows both the: ories and suggests that tho rider him- self twists the front wheel to generate precession, hence staying upright. A theory of the hoop and bieyele on ‘gyroscopic principles is given by B. HL Pearsall who includes many rotational moments and derives a complex fourth-order differential equation of motion, This is not rigorously solved Dut demonstrates on general grounds the possibility of self-righting in a gyroscopically stable bieyele, A. non-gyroscopic bicycle 1 was with vague knowledge of these simple bieyele theories that 1 began iy series of experiments on bicycle stability. It occurred to me that it would be fun to make an unridable bieyele, which by eancoling the forces of stability would baffle the most ex need rider. I therefore modified ‘standard bieyele by mounting on the front fork a second wheel, clear of the ground, arranged sa that T could spin‘Steering axis Forkangle Wee! radius ermal beyle Front projection Negative Re ront projection ure Ww FRONT-FORK GEOMETRY. On left is a normal bieyele. Center shows URB IIL with reversed forks siving negative front projection, and on right ie URB IV with extended front projection, it against the real front wheel an ‘oppose the gyroscopic effect. ‘This creation, “Unridable Bieycle MK I” (URB 1), unaccountably failed; it could be easily ridden, both with’ the extra whee! spinning at high speed in either direction and with it stationary. Its “feel” was a bit strange, a fact I attributed to the increased moment of tia about the front forks, but it did not tax my (average) riding skill even at low speeds. The result resolves the ambiguity admitted by Richardson: the gyroscopic action plays very little part in the riding of a bieyele at nor- mally low speeds. ‘This unexpected result puzzled me. If the bicycle, as seemed likely, is a hoop with a trailer but is not gyro- scopic, perhaps the hoop is not gyro- scopic either? I repeated the experi- ment of URB I on a hoop by con structing one with an inner counter- rotating member, and this collapsed gratifyingly when I tried to roll it ‘The hoop is a bona fide gyroscope. ‘Then I tried to ram URB I without 4 rider, and its behavior was quite wn: ambiguous, With the extra wheel spinning against the road wheels, it collapsed as ineptly as my nongyro- scopic hoop; with it spinning the same way it showed a dramatic slow-speed stability, running uncannily in a slow, sedate circle before bowing to the in- evitable collapse, These results almost satisfied me. ‘The light, siderless bieyelo is. stabi- lized by gyroscopic action, whereas the heavier ridden model is not—it re- quires constant rider effort to. mai 36 + APRIL 2970 + PHYSICS TODAY tain its stability. A combination of the simple theories accounts neatly for all the facts. But the problem of why a ridden bicyele feels so stable, if in fact itis not, remains. ‘There was fone more crucial test: Could URB T be ridden in its distotatory mode “hands off"? For about the only sen- sible theory for riding with “no hands” supposes that the rider tits the frame by angular body movements and thus steers by the resulting front-wheel pre- Gingerly, and with great_trepida- tion, Lied the experiment—downhill, to avoid complicating the effort with pedalling. URB 1 is not an easy bi- cycle to ride "hands ofl” even with the front wheel static; it somehow lacks Dalanee and responsiveness. In. the disrotatory mode it was almost impos- sible and invited continual disaster, bout it could, just, be done. I was thus led to suspect the existence of an- other force at work in the moving bi- cycle, More theories In the preliminary stages of this inves- tigation, T had pestered alll my. ac- quaintances to suggest a theory of the bicycle. Apart from the two popular theories that I have mentioned al- ready, I obtained four others, which call theories 3, 4, 5 and 6: 3, The bicycle is kept upright by the thickness of its tires (that is, itis thin stearmoller). 4, When the bicycle leans, the point of contact of the front tire moves to one side of the plane of the wheel, creating frictional torque twisting the wheel in the lean and stabilizing. the bi cycle, as before, by centrifugl action, 5. The contact point of the bieyeles front tire is ahead of the steering axis, Turing the front whed therefore moves the contact poit swith the tum, and the rider us this efeet, when he finds himsel Jeaning, to move his baseline back underneath his center d sravity. 6. The contact point of the be ceycl’s tire is behind the steering axis. As a result, when tho bi: cycle Jeans a torque is de veloped that tums the fri wheel T suspect that theory 3 is not really serious. Theories 5 and 6 raise the question of steering, geometry, which T was later to Took at in this work. note that the gyro theory is silent ay why all front forks are angled and all front forks project forward from them ‘To test this matter T made URB 1 ‘URB I had a thin front wheel, only fone inch in diameter (an adapted fur: niture castor) mounted dead in line with the steering axis, to. test any steering-geometry theory. It looked 4 Judicrous contraption. URB II wat indeed hard to ride, and. collapsed readily when released, but this was a Teast in_ part because it could nega ate no bump more than half an inch high. ‘The litle front wheel also got nearly red hot when traveling fast. T abandoned URB IT as inconchebut preferred theory 6 to theory because in all actual bieyeles the Ont whee? contact point is’ behind: iersection of the steering axis ih the ground. Theory 6 is also neated by the only author who is his hypothesis ‘with actual wsurements.* But T could not see this force should vanish, as it I to, once the bicycle is traveling ils equilibrium curve, Thad grave picions of theory 4, for surely this me acting across less than half the ath of the tire would have a very all moment, and would depend cru. ly on the degree of inflation of the # Besides, T did not want nasty We frictional forces intruding b the pure, anstere Newtonian bi- theory towards which I was real importance of steering, geom- Bi was brought homo to me very tically. T had just completed a essing. series of experiments in if loading URB I, with or wit its extra gyro wheel, with some pounds of concrete slabs and send- it hurtling about an empty park. Jot (there are some tests one ean responsibly cary out on public ). The idea was to see if the ex- breights—projecting from the front Helens calculated by sieve of the frame to have the maximal ef. fect on the front wheel—would pre- veut the gyro effect from stabilizing the bicycle, as anticipated from the difference between ridden and rider. less. ikes. It appeared that the weights made the bieycle a little less stable, and the counter-totating, wheel Still threw it over almost immediately, But the brutal effects on the hapless machine as it repeatedly crashed to earth with its burden had me straight ening bent members and removing broken spokes after almost every run, Ik occurred to me to remove the handlebars to reduce the moment of inertia about the steering. axis; this ‘meant removing the concrete slabs and the brake assembly, whieh inci- dentally enabled the front wheel to be tured through 180 deg on the steer. ing axis, reversing the front-fork geom- try (see figure 2). I had tried this experiment once before, calling, the result URB TI; that machine had been strangely awkward to wheel or ride, and T had noted this result as showing that steering geometry was somehow significant, Idly I reversed the forks of the bike and pushed it away, expecting it to collapse quickly, Incedibly, it ran on for yards before falling over! Further tests. showed that this new riderless bieycle was amazingly stable. Tt did not merely Sterng ante w J We need to know H, the height of point from the ground: for a leaning bicycle.” Subroutine BICC saat vertical height and the height in the plane of the bike FIG. 3 rum in a curve in response to an im- posed lean, but actively righted itself =a thing no hoop oF gyro could do, The bumps and jolts of its progress did not imperil it, but only as it slowly lost speed did it become tune stable. Then it often weaved from side to side, leaning first one way and. then the other before it finally fell over, This experiment convinced me that the forces of stability were “hunt. ing’—overcorrecting the lean at each weave and ultimately causing, cok lapse. Once or twice the riderless disrotatory URB Thad shown mo- ‘mentary signs of the same behavior in its brief doomed career. Why does steering geometry: mat: ter? One obvious effect is seen by wheeling a bicycle along, holding it only by the saddle. It is easy to steer the machine by tilting the frame, When the front wheel automatically steers into the lean. This is not a Ryroseopie effect, because it occurs coven if the bike iS stationary. A Tittle study shows that it ocours because the center of gravity of a tilted bieycle can fall # the wheel twists out of line. So here was a new theory of bieycle sta bility—the steering is so angled that as the bike leans, the front wheel steers into the lean’ to minimise the mac chine's gravitational potential energy, To check this theory I had to examine the implications of steering geometry very seriously indeed. Computerized bicycles Tt tums out that defining the height of the fork point of a bicycle in terms of the steering geometry and angles of Jean and of steer (figure 3) is a re- markably tricky little problem. In fact T gave it up after a few attempts and instead wrote a Fortran subrou- 'e, “BICYC,” that solved the simul. taneous trigonometrical equations iteratively and generated all the re- quired dimensions for me. Armed with BICYC, T could now ereate all Sorts of mad bicycles on the computer and put them through their steer-and- Jean paces, The first few runs were most encouraging; they showed that with normal bicycle geometry, tilting the frame did indeed ensure that the center of gravity had its minimal ele. vation with the wheel tsvisted into the Ui “This had the makings of a really ‘00d theory. I hoped to prove that, for the observed steering geometry, the steering angle for minimal center. ‘of-gravity height increased with the ‘angle of lean by just the factor needed PHYSICS TODAY + APRIL 1870 + a7to provide perfect centrifugal stability, and that was why all bieycles have more or less the same steering, geom- etry. As for the strange behavior of URB IL, awkward to ride but in- credibly ‘stable if riderless, perhaps BICYC would provide a clu. But further calculations. shattered my hopes. Even with the bieycle dead upright, the forkpoint fell as the ‘wheel tured out of plane (thus neatly Aisproving the contention of refer fence 7 that a bieycle tends to run true Decause its center of gravity rises with any tum out of plane), and the mini- mal height occurred at an absurdly large steering angle, 60 deg. Even worse, as the bike tilted, this minimum ‘occurred at angles nearer and nearer the straight-ahead position (figure 4) until at 40 deg of tilt the most stable position was only 10 deg out of plane (these values are all for a typical ob- served steering geometry). Clearly the tilking wheel never reaches its rminimalenergy position, and ‘minimum can not be significant for de- termining the stability of the bieycle 1 looked instead at the slope of the height versus steeringangle curve at zero steering, angle, because this slope is proportional to the twisting torque ‘on the front wheel of a tilted bike, , His the height of the fork- int, the torque varies as ~dHT/dex at small values of ay, the steering angle. ‘The curves in figure 4 show clearly that dH /dee varies linearly with lean angle L for small angles of lean, The more the bike leans, the bigger is the twisting torque, as required, The constant of proportionality for this relationship is d@H/dadD, and the sign convention I adopted implies that 1 bicyelo is stable if this parameter is negative. That is, for stability the forkpoint falls as the wheel tums into the lean when the bike is tilted. oad] “HEIGHT OF FORKPOINT H (FRACTION OF WHEEL RADIUS) LEAN ANGLE (086) come enops a 210 io 0 a STEERING ANGLE « (DEG) COMPUTERIZED BICYCLES. These dat height of the forkpoint occurs near 1, from BICYC output, show that the mi fo the straight-ahead position for seater fngles of lean. Note also that dif/d varies linearly with lean angle L for small L. Gurves, computed for typical steering weometry (20deg fork angle, 0.2 radii front projection), are vertically staggered for clarity. 38 + APRIL 1970 + pHsics TODAY “SrIG. 4 I therefore computed dif for a wide range of steering eties, and drew lines of eons bility’on a diagram connecting th parameters of steering geor tangle of the frontfork steri and the projection of the ter ahead of this axis, T then pl fon my stability diagram all cycles I could find-ranging existing models to old ‘ed. “penny-farthings” to they supported the theory. ‘The results (figure 5) mensely gratifying. All the big plotted have geometries that the stable region. The older rither seattered but the mod are all near the onset of insta fined by the d21/dadL This is immedi A very stable control system: sluggishly to perturbation, fone nearer to instability i sponsive; modem bicycle a emphasized nimbleness and my verubility. Best of all, URB II ‘out much more stable than any ‘mercial bike, This result @ both its wonderful self inert rider with no balancing ‘and no preferred direction of t ‘would be happy on URB II, bi characteristics are too intense control ‘This mathematical e made it plain that the center Towering torque is developed as shown in figure 6, and is swith that postulated In refer But it does not vanish when t ceycle’s Jean is in. equilibrium centrifugal force, as therein supp (BICYC calculated the height d forkpoint in the plane of the big the “effective vertial”=to this). It ean only: vanish contact point of the front intersected by the steering axis BICYG shows clearly is the for minimal height. There is intimate connection betwoun “trail” of a bieycle, as defined in 6, and i dL line in figure 4 coincides with locus of zero trail ‘Two further courses of acti mained. First, I could make with a steering geometry wel i the unstable region, and second, I to decide what force oppos bovisting torque ona bike's wheel and prevents ittLines ot constant stabitty, 2 3 eS ® ® @ ® % x ary <3 30. 02, Om 38 "FRONT PROJECTION (FRACTION OF WHEEL RADIUS) TABLE AND UNSTABLE BICYCLES. On this plot of fork angle versus front pro ‘ion the dH /dedL lines are lines of constant stability. Grey area shows the unstable ‘a normal modern bicycle; 2 is racing bike. 3 and 4 are highowheel blot “penny-farthings") from the 1870's. Point 5 is an 1887 Rudge machine, and 0 Fa Lawson “Safety” of 1879. fie, of course URB IV. oY predicted minimal center-of- ree entering ‘et us consider the socond point i; Iwas looking for some sort of solf-centering bruit into all ear steering systems, "7 is URB IIL, and point 8, the only unstable =FIG. 5 as “pneumatic trail” are described by ‘automobile engineers. Once again nasty variable frictional forces were rearing their ugly heads! But how ‘could I check whether a bicycle wheel hhas self-centering? I examined a child’ trieyele for this property, releas- ing it at speed and, running alongside it, giving the handlebars a blow. It certainly. seemed to recover quickly and continue in a straight line, but unfortunately the tricycle (being free fof the requirement of twoowheeled stability) has a different steering ‘geometry So I made an experimental fixed- Jean bicycle by fastening an extra “outrigger” wheel to the rear of the frame, converting it to an asymmetric tricyele. Adjustment of the outrigger anchorage could impose any angle of Jean on the main frame, This ma- chine was very interesting. Initially 1 gave it 15 deg of lean, and at rest the front wheel tilted to the 40-deg angle predicted by BICYC. When in ‘mation, however, the wheel tended to straighten out, and the faster the bike was pushed the straighter did the front wheel become. Even if the ma- chine was released at speed with the front wheel deadl ahead it tumed to the “equilibrium” angle for that speed and lean—another blow for gyro # ory, for with the lean fixed there ean be no precessional torque to tum the wheel. So clearly there is a self- centering force at work. It is unlikely to be pneumatic trail, for the equilib- rium steering angle for given cond tions appears unaltered by complete deflation of the front tire. Now I had encountered a very attractive form of selfcentering action, not depending directly on variable frictional forces, while trying the naive experiment of pushing a bicycle backwards. Of ‘course it collapsed at once because the two wheels travel in diverging direc tions. In forward travel the converse applies and the paths of the two wheels converge. So, if the front wheel runs naturally in the line of its ‘own plane, the trailing frame and rear wheel will swing into line behind it along a tractrix, by straightforward geometry, To an observer on the bike, however, it will appear that self- centering is geeurring (though it is the rest of the hike and not the front wheel that is swinging) T modifed my outrigger tricycle to hold the main frame as nearly upright ‘as possible, so that it ran in a straight ——_| © ‘sidonaye ore on tire ol straight erack Handlebars pushed out of tue — Subsequent track shows no slf.centering JAYS FORCE on front tire pro- ‘a toraue about the steering axis, fending to Tower the center of gravity the bicycle. FIG. 6 SELEA TERING? A bicycle with an “outrigger” third wheel to keep it u ‘was pushed and released rideriess. At the Dut of true, resulting in a change of direction and no selfcentering. The si fons in the framework. shown the handlebars were PHYSICS TODAY + APRIL 1970 © 39ine. ‘Then, first soaking the fh wheel in water to leave a track, pushed it up to speed, released it, running alongside, thumped the lebars out of true. Looking at Dike, it seemed evident that the wh swung back to dead ahead. But track (figure 7) showed what T he to finda sharp angle with no t has only geometrical castor stability’ provide its self-centering, Success at last! This test completed the ingredia for a more complete theory of the bi cycle. In addition to the vider’s sil and the gyroscopic forces, there ‘on the front wheel, the cen of-gravity lowering torque (figure 6) and the eastoring forces; the heavi the bieycle's load the more import these become. I have not yet formal ized all these contributions into mathematical theory of the bieycle, perhaps there are surprises stil store; but at Jeast all the_ principle have been experimentally checked. T made URB IV by moving. the front wheel of my bieyele just fx inches ahead of its normal position, sotting the system well stable region. It was dodgy to ride, though not as impas| sible as 1 had hoped—pethaps my ski hhad increased in the course of thi study. URB IV had neglixible set stability and crashed geatifyingly t the ground when released at speed, Tt scoms a Tot of tortuous effort produce in the end a machine of abso Tutely no utility whatsoever, but th sets me firmly in the mainsteam of modem technology. At least 1 will have no intention of foisting the prot uct onto a long-suffering public in the name of progres. References 1. S. Timoshenko, D._H. Young, dd anced Dynamics, McGraw-Hill, New York (1948), pase 239, 2 A. Gray, A Treatise on Gyrostatics and Rotational Motion, Dover, New Yet (2959), page 146, 3. J. P. den Hartog, Mechanics, Dover, New York (1961), page $28, 4. KT. T, Richardson, The Gyroscope Applied, Hatehinson, London (1954), page 42, 5. ROHL. Pearsall, Proc. Inst. Automobile Eng. 17, 305 (1922). 6. R.A. Wikon-Jones, Proc. Inst. Mech Eng. (Automobile division), 1951-33, page 101 1. Rncyclopaiia Britney (087 ele tion), entry under “Bicycle.”