Why is it harder to keep a bicycle upright as you slow down?

Answer 1

It is not harder if you keep yourself perfectly in balance along the two touch points on the bottom of your wheels with the ground. You could even stop the bike and still stay upright (many acrobats do that by keeping their balances) ...

Nonetheless, your movement on the bike is defined by the sum of forces applied to you. Gravity is one. You giving speed to the bike is another one. Wind could be yet another one. As a sum of all these forces, you are bound to find some that are more important than others. If you are keeping your bike upright while you are going it is only because that force over-shadow the gravity (and the wind) ... As you slow down, gravity become more important until you fall if you are not in balance.

Note that if you ride downhill, gravity is helping you increase your speed, hence, keep your bike upright.

Answer 2

The wheels turning act like a gyroscope. If you've ever played with a gyroscope you know they're very good at balancing. The gyroscopic force increases with rotational speed., so the slower you ride, the less the force is keeping you steady. Sometimes you see video clips of people falling off motorcycles and the bike continues on its own with no rider,. The spinning of the wheels keeps it upright.

Answer 3

It has to do with gyroscopic forces. As the wheels move faster, these forces become greater. Without going into the math (which I've long ago forgotten), gyroscope forces tend to keep things upright whenever a force that might topple those things is applied. So as you tend to fall over because you are out of balance, the gyroscopic forces created by your rotating wheels tend to put you back upright. [See source.]

Answer 4

You lose the gyroscopic effect of the spinning wheels. The gyroscopic effect is a result of centrifugal force and inertia. Each and every part of your wheels, when spinning, don't want to spin. Each part (and I mean down to the atoms), once set in motion, want to continue on in a straight line (inertia). But, because the wheel is a solid object held in place by its axle, this force is contained in a circular pattern (centrifugal force). If the wheel spins fast enough it will break apart and then the parts will travel out in a straight line until they lose momentum or are stopped by external resistance (wind, a wall, a tree, etc).

Answer 5

The L force, Angular momentum
L=r x p
L is the angular momentum of the particle,
r is the position of the particle expressed as a displacement vector from the origin,
p is the linear momentum of the particle,

Answer 6

The wheels act as gyroscopes when they are rotating, so the faster you go the greater the effect. At least that's part of it.

Answer 7

It has to do with centrifugal forces working in your favor along with inertia as you move faster or slower.

Answer 8

balance

Answer 9

i think is balance