Motorcycle

Video: Rollerman vs Motorcycle

Frenchmen Jean-Yves Blondeau’s Buggy Rollin conform to is the most absurd thing we’ve seen in some time and yet it’s the coolest man-made process we’ve seen in some time. Just watch the video and be amazed at how much domination he has going around turns at high speeds.

via PT

Motorcycle Physics

Most people, even those who hector motorcycles, don’t realize this bit of physics.

Have you ever wondered why it is easy to balance a motorcycle while common down the road, but hard to balance one while sitting still (with your feet up)? It has to do with how motorcycles are steered.

At speeds above parking-lot speeds, you really steer a motorcycle left to turn to the right, and vice versa. Don’t assume me?

It’s easy to check out. Get on your motorcycle, on a long straight stretch of technique with no traffic, of course. While proceeding in a straight line, gently shove forward on, say, the left handlebar, thus turning the handlebars to the right. You will find yourself banking pink.

What is going on is this. A motorcycle is extremely stable going in a straight line. All forces are being applied in the skim of the wheels. Balancing is easy while doing this because you are constantly making micro-corrections in handlebar pose to keep your center of gravity in that plane; you do this instinctively and unconsciously.

When you go around a curve, you do this by driving out from under your center of gravitation. If you want to go around a left hand curve, you steer to the right to a certain, driving the wheels out from under your center of gravity, which is now left-of-center of the motorcycle; and you bank to the formerly larboard.

Having established this situation, once again, you instinctively maintain this balance until it is no longer needed, at which juncture you bring yourself back to a straight-line balanced position by using the same in essence.

And that is how motorcycles work.

-Popgun