Flutterby™! : Look Maw, No trainers 2009-09-27 18:56:15.043562+00

Look Maw, No trainers

2009-09-27 18:56:15.043562+00 by meuon 6 comments

Gyro Wheel replaces training wheels. and can be fitted to more than one bicycle. I see these making the family and friends rounds as kids learn to ride... and might be fun for other projects after the kids all learn to ride. Not as high-tech as a Honda UX-3 self balancing unicycle, but cool enough.

A problem with regular training wheels is that the child learns to lean in the wrong direction when making a turn, and this behaviour then has to be un-learnt when the training wheels come off. It's not clear from the linked video exactly how the gyro wheel works, and if it avoids this or similar problems. Anyone with more insight?

#Comment Re: made: 2009-09-28 13:23:37.822976+00 by: meuon [edit history]

Looking at the videos, it seems to be fairly natural. What makes a bicycle more stable at speed is the gyroscopic nature of the spinning wheels, this -should- be an enhancement of that same stabilizing force at lower speeds.

Stories: I learned on a junk "big" bicycle with no chain, and handlebars that had to be jerked hard to move at all, by pushing it to the top of the hill on the end of the street, standing on the curb and a block to get on the seat, and would coast down the street. I never had training wheels, etc.. I just wanted to ride a bike like the bigger kids did, really bad. My Dad scrounged up some extra cash and bought me a used kids bike... at the time, a major expense.

Looks like they've got a powered wheel inside the front wheel that's spinning quite a bit faster to put more gyroscopic impact on the steering.

I'm definitely not a training wheels fan, learned without them because my parents thought they were counter-productive for the reasons Linux mentions.

I learned the way meuon did except I thought my dad was holding me up as I went down the hill. I got to the bottom, crashed, looked around for my dad and he was a 100 yards behind me at the top of the hill. I found out later that he hadn't just pushed me down the hill, he tried to stay with me but after a few steps he couldn't keep up. The only time I ever used training wheels was at my cousins taking turns riding his bike that had training wheels on it. Both of my sons learned to ride the same way I did. My oldest one was three when he started riding a bike.

We lived about a quarter of a mile down a dirt road, I learned by having a parent walk behind me 'til I got going, then taking off to the end of the road, and waiting for them to catch up. One day I got to the end of the road, and when I stopped the bike to wait for my mom there was a big ol' German Shepherd nearby with whom I'd had some previous experience. I turned the bike around and learned to start myself right fast.

I too, learned without training wheels. My uncle plopped me on a bike on the sidewalk (next to a four lane road), gave a shove and told me to stay upright. Three days of that, and I was riding a bike.