Originally Posted by
carpediemracing
I was going to find some experiments where folks eliminated gyroscopic effects and such as the key to riding a bike. It's the ability to steer. You slightly fall to the right, the wheel turns (whether you lean it or turn it or what), and the bike is now steering right a touch. You lean the other way and the same thing happens, only to the left.
You have to be able to steer to ride a bike. Non-cyclists rode 1 or 2" wheeled bikes, bikes with super long or super short wheel bases, no trail or reverse trail, etc., but once they locked the bars, boom, they fell over.
I've seen similar things:
There was an article in Physics Toady in the early 70's or something that was reprinted a few years ago where someone modified a bunch of essentially regular bikes to make them have zero angular momentum (basically plop another wheel on top of each wheel to automatically spin at the same rate in the opposite direction) and they're still rideable. I've seen stayer's bikes with the fork turned completely around and they ride them at 45-60 mph behind motorcycles... but lock the bars and it's unrideable.