What we do know about how conventional bikes stay upright on their own is this: when a moving bike starts leaning to one side, it also automatically steers towards that side a little bit. The result is that the wheels come back underneath the center of mass, keeping the bike balanced.

When a bike leans, the gyroscopic effect tends to steer the handlebars in the direction of the lean, bringing the wheels back under the bicycle and helping to keep it upright. This “trail” gives the force of the ground on the front wheel a lever arm to cause steering in a way that can help restore balance.

A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος gûros, “circle” and σκοπέω skopéō, “to look”) is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in which the axis of rotation (spin axis) is free to assume any orientation by itself.

As the two points rotate, they continue their motion. This effect is the cause of precession. The different sections of the gyroscope receive forces at one point but then rotate to new positions! These forces rotate the wheel in the precession direction.

Basically you are making the top orbit its rotational axis. In a perfect system it stays that way forever, but in the real world, friction will eventually slow it down and it will fall.

A bicycle wheel acts like a giant gyroscope. A spinning bicycle wheel resists efforts to tilt it and point the axle in a new direction. Any rapidly spinning wheel exhibits this gyroscopic property—and you can use this tendency to take yourself for a spin.

The accepted view: Bicycles are stable because of the gyroscopic effect of the spinning front wheel or because the front wheel “trails” behind the steering axis, or both.

The gyroscopic effect counters the force of gravity and keeps the top from falling over. That’s why a top can’t stay spinning forever!

gyroscope, device containing a rapidly spinning wheel or circulating beam of light that is used to detect the deviation of an object from its desired orientation.

A gyroscope is a device that uses Earth’s gravity to help determine orientation. Its design consists of a freely-rotating disk called a rotor, mounted onto a spinning axis in the center of a larger and more stable wheel.

A spinning top is governed by the gyroscopic effect. 2. A gyroscope will spin about a constant axis unless acted on by a couple* – eg the Earth’s axis is at a constant 23.5 degrees, kept stable by the spin of the Earth. the top is more stable the faster it spins because gyroscopic effects dominate.

This is conservation of angular momentum. In the bicycle wheel gyroscope demonstration, there are two possible turning motions. The platform the person stands on turns like a wheel on its side. Call this horizontal turning motion. The other turning motion is the bicycle wheel the person is holding.

Even when an astronaut gives the spinning gyro a shove, the toy’s axle stubbornly resists changing direction. Spacecraft use small gyroscopes to sense their orientation in space. When the spacecraft turns, a freely floating gyroscope will not turn with it. Larger gyroscopes are also used to change the orientation of the spacecraft.

There is vertical turning motion in the bicycle wheel, but no horizontal turning motion of the platform. Then the person tilts the bicycle wheel to the side, so now there is horizontal turning motion where there wasn’t any before. Conservation of angular momentum tries to fix this.

Gyroscopes have been used through history for varied uses such as stabilizing spacecraft or for guidance systems on ships and missiles. See the original video on MIT TechTV – http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/717-mit-…