Teach Kids How to Ride a Bike – Gyrobike Gyroscopic Wheels Improve Balance
Unless your children are really brave kids, it’s not always obvious how to teach them to ride a bike without the safe feeling of bicycle training wheels to help them stay upright. Most parents need to do a lot of running next to the bicycle to support them, until they feel confident enough to continue on their own. This gyroscopic wheel has the potential to change that and to make the good old training wheels obsolete.
Why It’s Clever
Bicylce training wheels don’t deserve their name, in my opinion. I’ve never actually seen a kid trying to keep balance and really learn how to ride with training wheels attached. The children just tilt to one side, alternately, supported by the rear wheel and one of both training wheels. While doing this, they learn bad habits such as leaning the wrong way in a turn. In the end, when you take away the training wheels, you have to start from scratch anyway and teach them how to keep their balance on one wheel.
Once they’ve learned how to ride, the next challenge is to start from a stationary position and continue in a more or less straight line.
But this gyroscopic wheel may change all this. The gyroscopic effect has been known for ages: A disk that revolves tries to keep revolving in the same plane even when a force is applied to it. Have you ever spun a bicycle wheel that you were holding in your hands and then tried to change the orientation? If you have, you know what we mean. If you haven’t, then look at this video or go into the garage and try it out, the choice is yours.
These gyroscopic bike wheels use the same principle. The outer wheel, of course, can’t spin any faster than the bike is traveling. But inside the wheel there’s another wheel, spinning at a much higher speed, even when the bike is standing still. It’s that wheel that functions as a gyroscope, but that in itself doesn’t keep the bicycle upright. Because the Gyrowheel is the front wheel, when the bike starts tipping to the side, the wheel generates a torque that turns the handle bars in the right direction to stabilize the bike. When I first read about this invention, I assumed that it was the gyroscopic effect in itself that would stabilize the bike, but this is even more clever!
The gyroscopic wheels are powered by rechargeable batteries, while their speed can be adjusted when the child’s bike riding skills improve.
This video shows how it works quite well:
Summary
- Gyroscopic front wheel improves stability while your kid learns to ride
- Looks to be a better way to learn than traditional bicycle training wheels
- Gyroscopic disk is battery powered
- Spinning speed can be adjusted to the kid’s skill
- Can be used as a replacement front wheel on your kid’s bike
- 12" model available at time of writing.
Tips
The 12" Gyrowheel is already on the market; a 16" model is expected soon. Adult models are also being considered, which might help people with slight balance problems.
Where to buy
You can order the Gyrowheel from the Gyrobike website.
Approx. price: $100
Categories: time saving, simply original
© Copyright Clever & Easy
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|2010-02-26 12:26:53 Clever & EasyI was also wondering how it feels when you turn. On Youtube you can find a few clips where kids are actually riding the bike.
But the fact that it uses batteries also has an advantage. It allows you to adjust the rotation speed, decreasing the gyroscopic effect as the child's skills improve.
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I taught 3 kids to ride bikes and this would have made things easier. But what is learning to ride a bike without the bumps and scabs?
What I REALLY like is the invisible kid riding the bike in the video!
If you live in a neighborhood with lots of young families, you could buy one of these and make a business of renting it out.
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|2010-03-03 01:34:52 Clever & EasyThat's a good idea. You only need them for a few weeks in most cases, so why not pass them on (or rent them out). Not an idea the manufacturer will advertise with, though.
Btw, I don't mind the bumps and scabs but I could do without the hysterical situations that preceeded the following attempts.
Give the bike a FIRST PUSH and they start spinning, then are assisted to keep up the spin by Mechanical/riding..
Would make for a good exorcise bike also..
See the video didnt SHOW it on a bike..rear wheel or BACK??
On the front it will make Turning abit weird.