The Motorcycle as a Gyroscope by Higbie in the American Journal of Phyics

This article was published in 1973, a full 3 years after Jones’ Physics Today article, so there really is no excuse. If Higbie didn’t catch it, then the editors at the American Journal of Physics should have. Their current statement of editorial policy includes

Technical correctness is necessary, and contributions should … significantly aid the learning of physics.

Higbie’s contribution, however, meets neither criteria. He leads off with

As I was riding my 650 cc motorcycle, I discovered a curious fact which might be useful to those who would like to have an everyday example of gyroscopic action.

The curious fact he discovered is that is necessary to countersteer his 650 cc motorcycle, and the rest of the article is devoted to explaining what countersteering is and how gyroscopic precession works. No mention is made of any other phenomenon.

Thus, without so much as a back-of-the-envelope calculation or controlled physical experiment, he asserts that gyroscopic precession is how and why big bikes such as his 650-cc machine countersteer, and even goes so far as to call it gyroscopic turning. This implies that single track vehicles without spinning wheels can’t or don’t countersteer. How does he propose that such vehicles generate the roll moment necessary to negotiate a turn?

Well, if Higbie had done a little math after his exciting ride and before dashing off his manuscript , he would have discovered that gyroscopic effect makes a small contribution to the total roll moment which is quickly overwhelmed by the contribution from the lateral acceleration of the tire contact patches and then from the contribution from gravity acting on the center of mass which is no longer over the contact patches.

As I have written before, there is a nice example provided by Professor Cossalter on page 304 of the second edition of his excellent Motorcycle Dynamics. He calculates the roll moment generated by gyroscopic effect for a motorcycle traveling at 22 m/s (79 km/h or 49 mph) to be 3.5 N-m (2.6 lb-ft) and compares it to the roll moment generated by the accelerating contact patches of 30 N-m (22 lb-ft), which is 8.6 times larger. He concludes with the note that the gyroscopic effect is present from the instant torque is applied at the handlebars, and the roll moment generated by the lateral force of the tires can take some time, ~0.1 seconds in this example, to build up.

Higbie concludes that

This example of gyroscopic motion is sufficiently involved and “relevant” that it could be useful in first-year college or high school courses. 

Sure, unless anyone checks the math and discovers that gyroscopic precession is neither necessary nor sufficient for a bike to countersteer. Then this becomes an example of how misconceptions get perpetuated.

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