Just a thought I had today while biking home from work and I don’t know enough physics to answer it
In: 48
As long as your center of gravity is above the line between the contact point of your two tyres, you stay upright. The bike doesn’t know whether to fall left or right.
This is not stable. As soon as your center of gravity is a little bit more to one side, the bike will tend to fall that way.
The rider senses this. If the bike is rolling, the rider can, with a minute movement of the handlebar, move the line between the wheel-contact-points so that it is under the center of gravity again.
If you prevent the rider from being able to move the handlebar, by locking it into place, the bike falls to the side just as quickly as it would when not rolling.
If a bike is rolling slowly, you need to move the handlebar more to move the line between the two wheel-contacts.
If you’re stationary. The line won’t move at all.
PS: A common myth is that the spinning of the wheels is what keeps the bike uptight. If that were true, you could stay on a bike that handlebar is locked into place. But you can’t. You can see this claim on other replies.
PPS: it does contribute, but to a negligible amount. Other factors also contribute a little bit, such as having the front wheel axle ahead of the fork by a little bit. This allows bikes to remain upright when rolling without a rider. The minute handlebar adjustments happen by themselves. This also allows riders to ride without holding the handlebar, steering with hip movements. Cool shit. It’s still not the spinning of the wheels that does it.
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