Why does a cycle or two wheeler gain greater stability while moving?

There are two factors that help stability to a moving bike.

1. its rotating wheels create angular momentum and

2. when you are sitting on a bike, you, the bike and its wheels make up a system that obeys the principle of conservation of angular momentum. Once the wheels are moving in one direction, it will remain moving in same direction unless external force is applied.

(Extra fact: Angular momentum = mass*angular velocity*radius of the wheel, and its direction is perpendicular to the direction of motion of the system)

If you want to make a bike fall over, you need to rotate the direction of it’s angular momentum by 90°, making it point straight up or down. However, due to the law of conservation of momentum, you need an external force to be applied to do this.

If the bike in question is static, its angular momentum will be 0, thus requiring almost no force to topple it. However, as its velocity and thus angular momentum increases, increasing amounts of force are required, making the bike more stable.

Question by: Joshua Alias, IX D

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