David Damerell writes:

"jim beam" wrote:
Benjamin Lewis:
"jim beam"
as Jobst has claimed.
that's proof?

There's a neat piece of selective quoting. What this should read is;

old high school physics footage of a bike being ridden with a counter
gyroscopic wheelset. works just fine.
And is reportedly "almost impossible" to ride no-hands, as Jobst has
claimed.

I.e., the behaviour of this bike substantiates Jobst's claim.

With respect, that behaviour of a counter-gyroscopic bike is reported
in Jobst's claim. Thus it can't either substantiate or refute it. What
could substantiate or refute it is an independent report from someone
who had either seen the film (in which case they could confirm what
was said on the film) or had ridden the bike (in which case they
could confirm the behaviour of the bike).

Actually, this report
URL: http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark...32/pyfair.html
contradicts Jobst. It says that

'He reversed the front fork to nullify the caster action, and he
fitted a counter-rotating wheel on the front fork to effectively
nullify or cancel out the gyroscopic effects. When he was finished,
he still found that the bicycle could still be balanced and steered
quite easily... These experiments effectively disproved the
hypothesis that gyroscopic motion was the primary force responsible
for balance in a bicycle...'

Now, I have no way immediately of assessing whether Jobst's claim or
the report given above should be given more credence. But lean steer
works for a number of other 'vehicles' which have no gyroscopic
effects. Snowboarders manage just fine no hands, as do
surfers. Furthermore, on both these platforms control increases with
speed. Thus gyroscopic effects are not _required_ to account for the
ability to ride a bike no hands.

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; how did we conclude that a ****ing cartoon mouse is deserving
;; of 90+ years of protection, but a cure for cancer, only 14?
-- user 'Tackhead', in /. discussion of copyright law, 22/05/02