Bike Lover

From "Autotech Daily" Thursday April 20, 2006:

"LOOK KIDS, NO HANDS!
A group of Japanese partners have developed a balancing mechanism to help prevent
bicyclists from falling over. The concept targets older riders.

When the bicycle begins to tilt, a microcontroller quickly calculates the degree of tilt
and activates a motor that applies the necessary amount of force to adjust the handlebars
to keep the bike balanced. The Sakai Industry Club developed and produced a
prototype bike, which was designed in partnership with the Osaka University of Arts. The
aerospace department at Osaka Prefecture University’s School of Engineering oversaw
theoretical analysis and performance testing."

This is apparently for when someone is riding but who knows...

nitropowered

so you couldn't turn at any high speed since the bike will auto correct the lean.

krazyderek

Cycling is a huge part of commuting in asia, it's not suprising. I would think this would be targetted at comfort commute bikes, with basket's and all that don't do alot of leaning and high speed turns. Even so i'm sure they'd have a way to make it so that if you're moving faster then 15kph the computer will know you're making a turn instead of falling over.

Eatadonut

But the product targets older riders in Japan.

They don't go fast, they're just trying to get to work, or to someone's house.

SDRider

Sounds heavy. No thanks.

TheCahill

Ok since no one else is going to ask.

Does it come in Carbon?

jsharr

And are the bottom brackets welded in?

TheCahill

ohhh i feel sad. tonight im picking up a maap gas torch and trying the heatr again

jsharr

at some point you have to just go get a nice long piece of pipe and either get it loose or destroy it. I will bring the beer for the celebration or funeral if invited.

mscycler

I'll bring the pipe if you bring the beer...what's on tap??? Might be a long drive from Jackson, MS, but hey, I need a good excuse to take a vacation.

mscycler

urbanknight

Actually, that might not be true. If the mechanism is gravity based, it will think the bike IS perfectly upright while leaning into a turn because a bicyclist naturally leans just enough to counteract the lateral G forces the turn is creating.

What does get me, though, is I don't want mechanism steering my wheel while riding anyway. Have any of you ever looked down while cornering before? Even at high speeds, the outer edge of your wheel doesn't move more than 1/2 inch. What would happen if you were riding at say 20 mph and the mechanism felt "something" and tried to steer your bars a few inches?

As for the track stands, it won't work. If all it does is adjust the steering wheel, you must be moving in a forward direction for it to take affect on your balance. Sorry. You'd need mini jet engines or something to hold you up while standing still.

TYB069

There was a show on PBS a few weeks back about that race in Nevada (I think) with the cars driven by computers. Anyway, some guy made a robot motorcycle. The thing was pretty impresive. It could navigate, lean, turn and stay upright by itself, although it did accidently steer into something but remember the thing was completely controlled by a computer program. If the steering was left up to a human and the balancing left up to the computer, I think that it could work pretty well.