Citation

Dressel A, Papadopoulos JM. Eur. J. Phys. 2012; 33(4): L21-L23.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, IOP Publishing)

DOI

10.1088/0143-0807/33/4/L21

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In their paper 'On the stability of a bicycle on rollers', Patricia A Cleary and Pirooz Mohazzabi (2012 Eur. J. Phys. 32 1293) incorrectly assert that two key differences exist between riding a bicycle on pavement and riding on rollers. The first is that riding a bicycle on rollers somehow tests the role of the centrifugal force and the second is that a lack of inertia or forward momentum on rollers somehow decreases stability. The most straightforward explanation for why these differences do not exist is Galilean invariance. Although it is true that the steer and yaw angles, and thus the magnitude of any lateral acceleration, are limited because of the narrow width of a treadmill or rollers, which certainly can make balancing more difficult, the accelerations that do occur are identical to those which would be found by riding within a similarly narrow path of fixed pavement. In fact, even though a bicycle on rollers or a treadmill has no forward momentum in a frame of reference that is stationary with respect to the ground, it has the same balance dynamics, and thus stability, as the same bicycle on fixed pavement.

Language: en