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Will a free standing bicycle ridden on a treadmill fall over? (hackertalks.com)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by jet@hackertalks.com to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.ml

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Stationary bicycles need support to stop from falling over because they lack gyroscopic stabilization. Right?

If you ride a free bicycle on a treadmill (so both wheels are spinning) will it fall over or stay upright?

If you fall over on a treadmill, does it matter if this treadmill bicycle combo is on a train?

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[–] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago

Not seeing the correct answer here. Though the gyroscopic effect helps a little, it's minor. If you ever did the experiment in school where the teacher had you hold a spinning bicycle wheel on a handle, you know the effect is there, but you also know it doesn't take all your body weight to overcome it.

The real answer is steering: on a moving bike, if you start to lean one direction, you can just turn the handlebars slightly to turn into it. That's why on a bike moving slowly, you find yourself steering back and forth like crazy to maintain balance, but on a fast moving bike it seems almost effortless. Also, the way bikes are designed, they're somewhat self-correcting: if you lean over on a moving bike, the wheel turns to that direction.

On a treadmill, both the gyroscopic effect and the ability to steer into the fall should be in place, so I think it should be stable.