(YouTube Link)
Bicycle maker Gyrobike has invented the "Gyrowheel" -- a wheel with a motor-driven gyroscope inside that helps keep it upright. The manufacturer hopes to market it as a replacement for traditional training wheels on kids' bicycles. Nathan Barry of GeekDad writes:
It aims to replace traditional training wheels or stabilizers and to eradicate the bad habits that they teach kids when learning to ride a bike - leaning away from a turn and constantly putting a foot down at the first sign of a wobble when they’re eventually taken off. The Gyrowheel uses the “gyroscopic precession” of the independently spinning disk inside it to stabilize the bike. The force created when the disk is turned - via a rechargeable battery - is powerful enough to hold a wheel upright at very low speeds (i.e. virtually stopped), and can actually make a bike look like it has a “Ghost Rider” as the videos below show (and there are plenty more on the Gyrobike site).
Product Page via GeekDad (where there's an additional video)
And about bad habits: traning wheels are not supposed to touch the ground when there in advanced mode :) (bend up)
2. The bike in the video falls over after about ten feet. Is this really string enough to hold up a kid?
Disclaimer : I was also born with a bike between my legs :)
This gyroscope wheel is always on, and makes the child learn to ride in a diffent way than they will encounter when they take it off. They will have to relearn their balance on a bike once the gyroscope is removed. I find it interesting that they don't show any kids trying to ride the bikes. They just roll the bikes and watch them fall over, proving they wouldn't prevent a child from doing so.
P.S. It might work better in the back, but that is not practicle, because it would need to accomodate the chain and brake elements of the bike.
I give them a thumbs up for perhaps starting a new craze in bike enthusiasm. Kids in the US don't ride bikes very much anymore. So, the gyroscope wheel does have some mertis.
I got one of those pedal-less bikes from Germany. They really work great for teaching balance. My 2 year old zips around all over the place on it with both feet off the ground at once about half the time. I think it's called a Puki.