can you drive a bike if you cant ride a push bike?

[PeteDoherty]

or is it 100% diffirent?

[Hooli]

its still balancing on two wheels, its kind of handy not to fall over after all.

[cptsideways]

Hmmmm Not sure if you can get stabilisers for motorbikes

[Hooli]

cptsideways said:

Hmmmm Not sure if you can get stabilisers for motorbikes

sidecars?

as an aside i've seen stabilisers that lower below 5mph & auto raise above that on a bike. they fitted into what looked like normal panniers. the bloke riding the bike only had one leg. very interesting to see, i love the engineering & original thinking in that sort of thing.

[hiccy]

Groscopic forces keep you up on a motorbike, whereas pushbikes are all about balance. How you will fare pulling away on a motorbike is anyones guess. Do the CBT and find out.

[Buelligan 984]

Pete,

Short answer is "yes".

Longer answer is that in many ways its easier to learn how to ride a motorcycle than to learn to ride a pushbike.

A "lifetime" of pushbikes / skateboards / rollerblades / etc might give you a more "natural" sense of balance that is helpful at low speeds, but don't let that put you off learning to ride a bike. In some ways, coming to motorcycles with a "clean slate" actually helps - you have no preconceived ideas or reactions so you can be taught the right thing from the outset, without having to get you to let go of "right for bikes - wrong for motorbikes" ideas first.

I spent about 8 years working as a motorcycle instructor and in my experience the best pupils were mountaineers. I don't know exactly why - hanging by your fingertips with a 3,000 ft drop doesn't seem to offer any relevant experience at the first look. Then again, the "do not F up or its game over" attitude, the "me alone against the world" viewpoint, the "I can do this" spirit all seem to help. (And yes - these guys can do "balance" in a way that most of us can't get near!)

Scuba divers were much the same - took to bikes like they were born to it. (Again, its that "do not F up attitude: get it wrong and I die: concentrate etc point of view).

Learn to ride - do it - but make damn sure you end up being the best in your group, then find a better group and be better than them too etc.

Dave

[black-k1]

The technical answer is yes but, when I was instructing I would refuse to train anyone who couldn’t ride a pushbike. The risk of them falling off a motorbike, especially at low speed, was pretty high and was even worse if the were a car driver.

If you put your mind to it you can learn to ride a push bike in a couple of hours but the natural balance you will develop will be very useful when on a motorbike.

[ec1 eex]

hiccy said:

Groscopic forces keep you up on a motorbike, whereas pushbikes are all about balance. How you will fare pulling away on a motorbike is anyones guess. Do the CBT and find out.

I don't think Gyroscopic forces will keep you up when you're doing the figure of 8's on the CBT. That's all balance!

[Hooli]

a good point was made up there about 'right for bikes, wrong for motorbikes'. i had to walk away from my CBT for 10mins & have a cuppa due to that. i couldnt stop myself 'releasing the brakes & pedaling' to go. shouted at myself for a bit & i was ok afterwards.

[roy e6]

This is a joke right? I just took it that by the time anybody is old enough to ride a motorbike, that they could ride a pushbike. Unless of coarse your trying to teach a 4 year old, to ride a motorbike first.

[Rubin215]

hiccy said:

Groscopic forces keep you up on a motorbike, whereas pushbikes are all about balance. How you will fare pulling away on a motorbike is anyones guess. Do the CBT and find out.

A fair bit of cycling is gyroscopic too; counter steering (push bars left to turn right) works for both above 10 mph or so.
Even the figure of eight on cbt is about gyroscopic forces, otherwise you would never get the bike over from one side to the other

Best recommendation would be to make sure you can actually balance first.
Once spent an hour trying to teach a prospective traffic warden to pull away on a twist and go scooter without veering off to one side and falling over.
Eventually another instructor asked him if he could close his eyes and stand on one leg. Cue falling over again...
Turned out he had problems with his inner ear and had never been able to ride a bicycle as a child.

Before booking a course and handing over money, ask your local school if they will give a taster or trial lesson. Most do, and it can save a lot of grief later.
Stunning how many people will hand over the best part of £600 for a course, spend another £500 on kit and put a deposit on a brand new bike without ever actually knowing if they can acomplish the basics!

Good luck though, and enjoy yourself!

[Talksteer]

Rubin215 said:

A fair bit of cycling is gyroscopic too; counter steering (push bars left to turn right) works for both above 10 mph or so.
Even the figure of eight on cbt is about gyroscopic forces, otherwise you would never get the bike over from one side to the other

Good luck though, and enjoy yourself!

The stability of a bike is not based mainly on gyroscopic forces as is widely believed. It is based on self centring of the stearing due to trail. The faster you go the greater this self stability.

[Rubin215]

Talksteer said:

Rubin215 said:

A fair bit of cycling is gyroscopic too; counter steering (push bars left to turn right) works for both above 10 mph or so.
Even the figure of eight on cbt is about gyroscopic forces, otherwise you would never get the bike over from one side to the other

Good luck though, and enjoy yourself!

The stability of a bike is not based mainly on gyroscopic forces as is widely believed. It is based on self centring of the stearing due to trail. The faster you go the greater this self stability.

So explain how stability increases with speed then? There is no magical increase in trail just because the bike goes faster.

Look at gyroscopic forces however; the faster a gyroscope spins, the more difficult it becomes to move it from it's current position.
Two wheels on a motorcycle represent considerable gyroscopic forces especially at higher speeds.
How difficult does it become to make sudden changes of direction at motorway speeds compared wtih town centre riding?

Increase the diameter or weight of the wheels and the greater the gyroscopic force; hence increased stability (and slower steering) on many big wheeled older bikes with the same rake and trail as more modern kit.

Look also at the penny farthing; a two wheeler with virtually zero trail. Almost a kamikaze ride when first moving yet fantastically stable at speed (and coincidentally a great big gyroscope right underneath the pilot).

I'll put my money on gyroscopes thanks.

[*Al*]

When recently doing my DAS and the dreaded 'turn in the road' i was told by the instructor that gyroscopic forces does help stability especially at low speed steering.Revving the engine whilst turning sharp and slow does indeed help.
Luckily i seem to have a very good natural sense of balance, and never once had a 'foot down' moment.

[Talksteer]

Rubin215 said:

Talksteer said:

Rubin215 said:

A fair bit of cycling is gyroscopic too; counter steering (push bars left to turn right) works for both above 10 mph or so.
Even the figure of eight on cbt is about gyroscopic forces, otherwise you would never get the bike over from one side to the other

Good luck though, and enjoy yourself!

The stability of a bike is not based mainly on gyroscopic forces as is widely believed. It is based on self centring of the stearing due to trail. The faster you go the greater this self stability.

So explain how stability increases with speed then? There is no magical increase in trail just because the bike goes faster.

Look at gyroscopic forces however; the faster a gyroscope spins, the more difficult it becomes to move it from it's current position.
Two wheels on a motorcycle represent considerable gyroscopic forces especially at higher speeds.
How difficult does it become to make sudden changes of direction at motorway speeds compared wtih town centre riding?

Increase the diameter or weight of the wheels and the greater the gyroscopic force; hence increased stability (and slower steering) on many big wheeled older bikes with the same rake and trail as more modern kit.

Look also at the penny farthing; a two wheeler with virtually zero trail. Almost a kamikaze ride when first moving yet fantastically stable at speed (and coincidentally a great big gyroscope right underneath the pilot).

I'll put my money on gyroscopes thanks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_and_motorcycle_dynamics 

Obviously not pear reviewed! (But links to numerous knowledgable people all saying the same thing)

Edited by Talksteer on Wednesday 2nd January 02:30

[trumpet600]

roy e6 said:

This is a joke right? I just took it that by the time anybody is old enough to ride a motorbike, that they could ride a pushbike. Unless of coarse your trying to teach a 4 year old, to ride a motorbike first.

my daughter was able to ride her QR50 motox before we took her stabilisers off her pushbike.
She was 3 1/2

[GreenV8S]

Talksteer said:

Rubin215 said:

I'll put my money on gyroscopes thanks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_and_motorcycle_dynamics 

Obviously not pear reviewed! (But links to numerous knowledgable people all saying the same thing)

That looks like wikib*llocks to me. They're "refuting" the idea that the gyroscopic effect holds the bike up on its own, but of course it doesn't. What it does do is steer the front wheel towards the direction you are falling so that the wheels tend to stay under the center of mass. If you have a bike with very small wheels you can add as much trail as you like; it still won't balance itself.

[Hooli]

if the gyro wasnt a big effect in the balance of the bike why would some stunt bikes ive seen have a small motor to keep the front wheel spinning during long wheelies?

[rev-erend]

You could always buy those stabiliser wheels .. like they fit to push bikes.

[Chilli]

rev-erend said:

You could always buy those stabiliser wheels .. like they fit to push bikes.

Really? Lets have some pic's then!!