Originally Posted by
AngryScientist
absolutely would, with limited maneuverability. ever ride with no hands on the bars? you are able to stay up because of the forces at work on the bike and your body, as influenced by your shifting of weight. when going in a straight line at speed on a bike, steering does very little to keep you upright.
incorrect.
You cannot shift your weight with respect to the contact patch on the road without turning the handlebars. Newton's third law, I believe, the one about action and reaction. You are an inverted pendulum on your bike, and you stay upright in the same way as you do when you balance a stick upright on your finger: by moving the base around to keep it under the CG.
If you ride a bike with a sticky headset, it literally feels like there is a giant hand trying to push you over (from my own experience). It's impossible to ride a bike with a welded headset. And it's been shown experimentally (to back up the theory) with a special bike where the gyroscopic action of the wheels are canceled by counter-rotating disks that gyroscopic forces play little or no part in keeping a bicycle upright.
EDIT: the points have already been made by CDR...
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