Same principle as a gyroscope: a turning wheel will tend to stay perpendicular or parallel to the direction of the gravity vector because if it starts tilting away from such orientation there’s a force that pushes it back.
Also works better with bigger wheels (if I remember it correctly the effect is related to spinning momentum).
I was pretty surprised when learning Physics and they show us how to derive the formula for that (which I totally forgot since that was over 3 decades ago).
Edit: Actually the gyroscopic effetc is just a part of it. See this article
Same principle as a gyroscope: a turning wheel will tend to stay perpendicular or parallel to the direction of the gravity vector because if it starts tilting away from such orientation there’s a force that pushes it back.
Also works better with bigger wheels (if I remember it correctly the effect is related to spinning momentum).
I was pretty surprised when learning Physics and they show us how to derive the formula for that (which I totally forgot since that was over 3 decades ago).
Edit: Actually the gyroscopic effetc is just a part of it. See this article
Actually, it’s the bike’s geometry rather than a gyroscopic effect. Try rolling a bike backwards rather than forward - it’ll topple quickly
Yeah, you’re mostly right: Why bycicles stay upright.
There’s some gyroscopic effect, but per that article it’s not the main reason.